100: Kimberly Smith on Unity and Forgiveness - Making Peace with Polygamy

Show Notes:

*Nauvoo archeologists Paul Debarthe and David Debarthe are showing that Nauvoo was in fact not a swamp. Those claims grew out of exaggerated stories. Another false Nauvoo narrative that will be fascinating to “dig” into!

Biography of Alexander Hale Smith

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Transcript:

[00:00] Michelle: Welcome to this 100th episode of 132 problems revisiting Mormon polygamy. I, I am amazed this is the 100th episode. It feels like a big deal. And just right at the New Year, we crossed the 10,000 subscriber point which blows me away when I started this. I thought I’d be thrilled if it ever managed to get to 1000 subscribers on this topic. And here we are at 100 episodes at over 10,000 subscribers and still climbing quickly. Um Speaking of, if you haven’t subscribed, go ahead and let’s keep bumping it up. I think the reason that I um that that feels gratifying is because it lets me know that these messages, this truth that I’m trying to share is resonating with people and that feels so good to me. And also it makes us be taken a little more seriously, which I think is always a good thing. So these are exciting um things that are happening and I really wanted to have something special for my 100th episode. I had one, I had one idea I was working on. Then another idea I was working on and then this fell into my lap. I got into a conversation with Kimberly Smith, the great, great granddaughter of Joseph and Emma Smith, who has both an amazing spirit and an amazing story and also an amazing mission. And so I am so thankful that she agreed to come on and talk to me. This was her first ever um public appearance other than in her firesides. And I think that you will, I, I hope that everybody loves this episode as much as I do. It is definitely worthy of the 100th episode. So I welcome you. I am glad you are here. I am so excited to introduce you to Kimberly Smith as we take this deep dive into the beautiful, beautiful topic of unity and love in the world and also in the restoration. Welcome to this episode of 100 and 32 problems. I am so grateful and excited to be here with my guest today. This is Kimberly Smith, who I have interacted with a bit on Facebook, but only recently I had the privilege of hearing a little bit more of her story. And um I’m so thankful that she was available and agreed to come on to talk to you. So the first thing I will say about Kimberly is she is a direct descendant of Joseph and Emma. She is, I just as the great, great granddaughter of Joseph and Emma Smith, which is just incredible. And Kimberly can I ask are you from Joseph Smith the third or Alexander? Who, where does your lineage go

[02:57] Kimberly: through? Ok. So, from Alexander it goes down to my grandpa Arthur and my dad, Joseph.

[03:04] Michelle: Ok. Oh, my goodness. So your dad was also Joseph Smith? And,

[03:10] Kimberly: ok,

[03:11] Michelle: your dad is also, I apologize it, Joseph Smith. That’s beautiful. And I had the opportunity to read a little bit of Kimberly’s story. And do you go by Kimberly? Do you prefer Kim? Is it, do you have a

[03:23] Kimberly: preference? Um, I don’t, I really don’t care. Ok. Ok.

[03:29] Michelle: Ok. Good. We’ll do Kimberly. So, um, so anyway, I, I, um it’s just an incredible story. I know that Kimberly has spent maybe a couple of decades doing firesides and creating music and poetry to spread the gospel that she has embraced that you’ve embraced. And would you mind just kind of starting out telling us a little bit about your life and your conversion story? Just tell us who you are, where you come from a little bit if that’s all right.

[03:58] Kimberly: Sure. Um, so I was uh born in Merville, Tennessee 1962 and we moved around a lot. So I lost my ex aunt, but when we, when we get back down south, I start talking that way again. Um As far as any kind of faith base that I had, it was mostly connected to my mother’s what I call Mountain Southern Gospel, which is an amazing foundation to have um because those mountain people believe strongly in always following the Holy Ghost that’s, that’s just hammered into you, you know, and the spirit’s leading you go no matter what. So I learned from my mother that the Holy Ghost trumps everything. So it doesn’t matter what other people are. And, um I had no idea till I was 12 that I was a descendant of Joseph, even though my dad’s name was Joseph Smith. Um, because I, we moved, moved around so much. It wasn’t around that side of the family and dad never talked about it. So it was actually because I was a huge fan of the Osmonds. And I was one of those millions of girls that swore I was gonna marry Donnie. And, you know, it’s, uh, their, their music was prevalent in my life at a time when I had experienced some severe abuse by a neighbor of ours and it was, um, them and the, the carpenters and the bee gees, they all just became like healing type of music, uh, for me and I kind of withdrew from the world for a while because I’ve been performing with my father, uh, in bluegrass music and I just thought that’s what I was going to do the rest of my life. And,

[05:33] Michelle: uh, with, with bluegrass. Are, were you the singer? Do you play? What, what,

[05:37] Kimberly: um, yeah, a lot of instruments my son and I put out is kind of a bluegrass gospel type, uh, CD. And on my mama’s side, Dolly Parton is my third cousin. So there’s a lot of mountain influence in our music. And, uh, but with back in those days it was just me and my sister would, um, perform sing with my dad. And, um, and I kind of pulled away from all that because I swore I’d never get up in front of anyone again because of what had happened to me. It crushed me so badly. Uh And right about then the Osmonds came out with their album called The Plan, which was a pop variation of the Plan of Salvation. But I had no idea what that was. Uh I just know that when I listened to it, I could feel the spirit and it was just very different from their other music because it was asking questions like, where did you come from? Why are you here, where you going when you leave this place? And my dad didn’t like the osm because their hair touched their collar and that made them hippies and his size. So, you know, I just asked him one day why he didn’t like them. And he said, because they’re Mormon and um just the change in his countenance made me feel like that was a bad thing. So I learned very young to, to keep anything related to Mormons at, at a hand’s length, you had distance. Um And a few months after I heard this album. We went to visit my grandma Smith who lived in Ava Missouri and I walked in and hanging on her wall was two portraits, one of a man and one of a woman. Um And the, the value of what my mom taught me about the holy ghost was if you get around people or things and the spirit is really, really strong, you need to learn as much as you can about those people and things because you’re being led somewhere and immediately they felt familiar to me. And there was just a love in my heart for these two individuals. So I went and asked my grandma who they were and she said that’s Joseph and Emma Smith, your second great grandparents. They’re the ones. He’s the one who started the church and she was, she was referring to Church of Christ Temple Lot, which was an early break off um of the original church, but they considered themselves the original church. And that’s what my grandfather had joined after he left the RL DS or reorganized church, which is now known as community of Christ. So, so was

[07:51] Michelle: your grandfather born into the RL DS and raised in the RL DS? And he left to join the temple lot,

[07:59] Kimberly: the apostle of a secretary in the temple church? Oh, so that I had no idea what grandma was talking about. I just need to know, I knew as much as I, I could about this man because I was being drawn toward him. And so this is where I began to bump into all of these things we’re told. Uh, because shortly after that we moved to Ava Missouri. So I was surrounded by all my dad’s people and I would hear these stories about, um, Brigham Young, supposedly having my great, uh, great grandfather murdered. And if you’re a descendant of Joseph and, em, and you go to Utah, you’ll get killed because there’s a conspiracy to wipe us all out. It’s just a lot of crazy stuff that every time I’ve heard it, it did, it felt bad. And,

[08:44] Michelle: ok, will you pause on that for a second? So the RL DS and the Temple Lot belief because I know Emma Brigham Young said that Emma believed that he killed Joseph. So that was, you guys were raised on that idea that Brigham Young killed Joseph Smith. And that going to Utah was, well, well, I just barely had a conversation with a friend where I said for Emma, I imagine that her sons going on missions to Salt Lake had to feel like, like Mosiah with his sons going to the Lamanites, right? It was terrifying for her. So, so anyway, I just wanted to pause on that a little, that’s what you were taught is that was the history where

[09:23] Kimberly: the fear of going out west came from. Uh It was a real fear that Emma had based and it was based on things that were being said about her, um, in the West and people from the West who would come to visit. And so those feelings were real to her. But I’m, I’m a historian and I like to look at both sides of the coin. So when it comes to, um, the question of Brigham Young, having Joseph and hire murdered and all the research I did, I never found anything that said that Emma believed that I, I’ve never found anything. Uh, what I, what I found was that William Joseph’s brother wrote an article I believe it was published in the loss. And, um, he accuses Willard richards of poisoning Samuel, uh, who died a few weeks after Joseph and Hiram were killed. And so from that, that’s, that’s all he said. From that four generations down to me, it’s morphed into, um, Brigham Young had Joseph Hire and Samuel kill. So I never believe. And I’ve never seen anything to convince me that that Brigham Young was behind Joseph’s death.

[10:36] Michelle: So, ok, thank, thank you for passing on that. I don’t want to interrupt your story. I just think it’s so interesting that that was the belief of your people. That was the belief. So, ok, so

[10:45] Kimberly: all I, all, all I knew is I need to find out as much as I could about this man and it bump, it caused me to bump into all of these things and I learned whenever these things came up, there was such a conflict inside of me. And the more I prayed about it, the more the Lord was like, you know, don’t focus on that, don’t focus on that. Focus on this. You need to find out as much as you can about this man. And so I went through my grandfather’s trunk. He had a lot of uh things that have been handed down in the family. And one was a little pamphlet uh that the or reorganized church had published. Um I think in the early 19 hundreds and it’s Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith tells his own history. And um it’s basically his conversion story of, it’s his story of the first vision. It’s the first thing I had ever read that talked about it and I knew as soon as I read it that it, that it was true. And so, um that’s all I really had to go on and, and, and I was a teenager at the time. And so I just kind of put everything aside uh until I became an adult and I was married and got in and um interested in family history, genealogy. Uh I had been so fascinated with so many historical figures in history and here I was related to one and that, that was kind of fascinating me, who else am I related to? So I just kind of digging like that and it, it introduced me to um going to the family history Center for the first time. And that’s when I found out about Nabu and I was pulled to go to Nabu and it’s just all these little stair steps led me eventually um to, to Navoo. And what was fascinating to me was all of those historical figures I had been so obsessed with were my grandparents straight back. You know, some of them kings and queens of England, Ireland, Scotland was like, OK, man, there’s a connection uh that we have with our ancestors for sure. Um But I, I still was very intimidated by being around L DS people because of the things I’ve been told. But every time I was around L DS people, the Holy Ghost was the strongest I’d ever felt it. So at length, I, I had to concede that that’s where I needed to go to, to find out more about my history. And so that’s so when

[13:01] Michelle: did I, did I miss, did you tell me when you were around L DS people? Was it in studying family history? Yeah, in

[13:08] Kimberly: 1986. After going to the Family History Center a few times, I just felt compelled to go there. And um I took my son and my daughter and we went for the first time to Nabu and not really being aware of my history. Um I had so many feelings and emotions walking on the homestead. Uh I was just at a point where I broke down crying by the graves and all I knew at the time that it just felt very heavy and something felt unsettled. Um, and I just knew I needed to know more. So, as I, as I stayed there and went through the different homes and spent time with the missionaries, I’d, I’d get outside and think, man, my dad said they’re so good in hooking you there. If you, if you’re not careful, you get snookered and I knew I’d get snookered at the drop of a hat because I just wanna be everybody’s friend. But I’d go through these tours in these homes and the Holy Ghost was just so strong and every witness I got was, you know, stay the course, you’re, you’re going in the right direction. You need to learn from these people. And so that’s kind of what I did. I went back and forth uh for several years to Nabu, which was like a half a day’s drive and we live close to Branson, Missouri, which um felt like it was an hour away from where we lived at the time in Ava. And the Osmonds had their theater there and I, I got a chance to go one night and during um just before intermission, Merrill Osmond came out and he was singing How great thou art and the spirit was like, you need to meet this man. Well, by then I was so used to listening to the Spirit. I was like, OK, I don’t know what this is about. You know, because to me it’s like nothing ever made sense, but it made sense later if I followed through. And, uh, so after the show, all the brothers would usually come out and visit with, with the people. And so I, I met all the brothers except Meryl didn’t come out. And so I waited until everybody was pretty well gone. And I, I told the kids we better, we better go because they’re gonna start cleaning up. So I was walking up the aisle and I heard someone behind me and it was Meryl. And so I turned around, I walked, walked up to him and introduced myself and something was saying, tell him, tell him who you are. And, uh, we had been taught never to tell anybody. And so I was just like fighting it, but it was just so strong. And I said, you know, I’ve seen your, my beliefs page and how much you loved Joseph Smith. And he said, um, oh, you remember the church? And I said, uh, no. And I said, I just wanted to know he’s my great, great grandfather. And he said, oh, I need to talk to you. And the reason he need to talk to me was before he had come to Branson, he had had a vision in which Joseph took him into a building and there was a room that was sectioned off by a curtain and Joseph pulled the curtain back. And Merrill said, he saw a sea of faces and they were all miserable. And Joseph said this is my posterity. Would you please help them? So that’s how I got to know Merrill. And we visited off and on and little by little, I began to feel that I could trust them. Um, if I wanted to investigate the church and take the lessons that I could trust them, um, to deal honestly with me because, you know, it was just, it was just hard when generations have been teaching, you stay away from that and that wall is put up, you know. Um So it was kind of scary but uh I took the discussions in his home with his sisters and during the third discussion, um I was given, you took the discussions

[16:33] Michelle: in Merrill Osmond’s home. You took the discussions with Merl Osmond. OK. This is an amazing story. OK? You

[16:39] Kimberly: know what’s so fun is his mom? I, I love his mom and dad so much, but his mom and I had so many laughs about the things I had been told. Uh One of which was if you’re a woman and you try to leave the church, they take you up to the top of the Salt Lake Temple and push you into the salt lake. And me being geographically challenged at the time thought the lake was right like right up against the temple. That would be a big throw And so she, she had a good chuckle every now and then and, you know, I would tell her a lot of stuff that I’ve been told and she would, you know, she would talk to me about it and clarify things. And so it was during the third discussion that the spirit was like you need to be baptized. And, uh, uh, right after the meeting I just told the sisters that I know I’m supposed to be baptized. And then there’s this moment of I had an hour drive home and all the things caved in on me like, OK, what about baptism of the dead? What about polygamy? What about bring him young? All these things I’ve been told and it was just the horrendous ride and I got home and I laid down on the bed and um the first thing that came to my mind was the holy ghost trumps everything. So I had to push all of that aside. Uh And I was baptized June 7th, 1998 Merrill came up to our ward on a Sunday and baptized me on a Sunday morning. So it’s a very short, short version. I left a lot out. But, but basically the whole journey was about following the spirit because especially polygamy because you know, you just don’t even say it. My dad’s family. It’s a P word, it’s a dirty word and you don’t say it because it just brings up so much ire and every time I bumped into that, on that journey, um I felt horrible inside like I would get ill inside, there would be all of this turmoil and conflict and I don’t like conflict. I don’t like contention. And every time I prayed about it, I always got the same answer the Lord would say put that behind you. That wasn’t your experience, that was the peoples of the past. Uh if mistakes were made, they’re on the other side of the veil, they’ve reconciled those mistakes. It’s not right for, for it to be carried on and to cause discord. And I was like, OK, I can live with that. Can I ask you a question?

[18:59] Michelle: Can I ask? So did you in like when your grandmother told you about Joseph and Emma her grandparents, I guess um did, did she say anything about polygamy? Had you been taught in your heritage that polygamy was Joseph or that it was Brigham? And I,

[19:18] Kimberly: yeah, we had been taught that um it was something we, there’s the belief that he was sealed. He was, he was in the act of sealing the human family together. And Nabu and that polygamy evolved as a result of Brigham Young, not Joseph Smith. That’s what my dad’s family believed. That Brigham Young had basically that he, he believed it and that it was supposed to happen and he had to um and this is my family’s words. He had to construct the revelation on it. Uh when he introduced it to the people to give it credibility because it didn’t feel like it would be acceptable to them unless it came from Joseph. So that’s what my dad believed. Yeah.

[20:10] Michelle: Ok. That’s helpful. Thank you. And so, yeah, continue with your experience with um the spirit and polygamy. Like, because joining the church that was a, like, like you had, I guess many of Brigham’s false doctrines to have to overcome. I don’t know if blood atonement and Adam God theory and, you know, played into your perspective or if it was just polygamy was the big focus. Or if there were other things that you struggled with

[20:37] Kimberly: a quote that I like by Albert Schweitzer. Um And I’ll have to read it because it’s the greatest discovery of any generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering the attitude of their minds. And so when it came to a lot of those controversial doctrines that had, that would fly in my face sometimes, um I had to learn to think that way. I had to learn to change how I thought. Um And I always went back on the answers. I, I would get when I would pray about it. And that was always, you know, put that, put that behind you, put that behind you because it’s not here right now. Your focus is supposed to be on your role in the gospel today. And so that’s that’s all that, that became my mindset was. But so there’s a spiritual side of me and there’s a historian. Yeah.

[21:29] Michelle: Ok. Ok.

[21:31] Kimberly: Historian is the one I love it when people dig in and into history mysteries and try to figure out why and how something happened and fill in gaps and puzzles. I think it’s, that’s natural and, and ok for people to do then there’s a spiritual side of me, which is like, I, I don’t, I had, you know, I had to be cautious and I think other people should be cautious of where they let their emotions from. The findings take them and, and to make sure the findings are absolutely accurate because these are people who aren’t here to defend themselves. These are people we will have to face again someday. We are measured by how we think about other people and how we talk about other people by God and will be held accountable. And so I’m very, very cautious. Like this is the first time ever in my 20 plus years of being in the church that I publicly talked about this in this depth because I don’t, I don’t want people to think I’m an advocate for one side or the other because I’m not what I’m an advocate for is peace, uh fullness of joy, the savior, um the gospel. That’s what I mean. Yeah, and unity, especially unity. And this is what bothers me about the both sides of the polygamy issue is that it gets to a point where people, it’s causing discord and it’s causing division. It’s causing people to lose their testimonies. And you could bring me any kind of document that’s 100% proof that somebody in the past did something against Joseph Smith. That and that person was in leadership position and it proved beyond a doubt that they did. I still would not leave. The Church of the Holy Ghost has told me to be here because that’s what I have to follow. I can’t follow um man. And you know, I can’t, I can’t follow things like that. I have to go with spirit.

[23:28] Michelle: That’s OK. So in our conversation, that’s one of the things I just loved about you because it felt, I don’t know, II I don’t want to claim too much, but Kimberly and I did have a conversation and I felt like I was talking to a sister. It just was so beautiful to talk to you. I, because that is exactly me. I like whatever struggles. Like, like the question is, what does God want you to do? Where does God want you? Right? Where, where can you be of the most? What is in your highest good, your family’s highest good and the world’s highest good. Where does God want you planted? And that’s where you go, period. And we have to learn to follow the spirit. I just adore that I have two questions for you. The first one is, what was your family and community’s reaction when you were taking the discussions when you decided to be baptized? Did like what, what did your parents, did you have Children already? At that point? Yeah. Can you, would you mind talking about that?

[24:23] Kimberly: So I was married at the time. Um I had two Children, I believe Brian, my son was 10 and my daughter was seven. Uh Nobody knew that I was taking the discussions. I kept it a secret. Um Nobody knew that I got baptized. The only person that knew was my son. He was the only one of the family was there. And at the time, you had to have your husband’s permission. That kind of slipped, slipped through the cracks somehow. Which is interesting because there was an urgency with this. Um, I was terrified of people finding out because I felt like someone put a stop to it and I knew it’s something that I was supposed to do. And, um, so I, I let a couple of months go by and the first person I told was my mom and she just said to me, well, was it the spirit that led you there? I said yes. And she said, well, you’ve done the right thing. What are you gonna tell your dad? I said, well, I thought I’d send him an email because I don’t want to talk to him. And so I, I did, I I wrote out a long email and explained everything and he was very, very hurt. Um, we’ve always had a good relationship. He never cut me off or anything like that. He thinks I’m going to hell. But he, he doesn’t cut me off and he still loves me. But, um, it did cause a lot of problems that were already there in my marriage and my husband was very um against the church. So.

[25:53] Michelle: well. Thank you. I’m sorry to ask a personal question. That’s, that’s a painful experience. I appreciate you sharing and I, I neglected to say thank you so much for um coming on and sharing your story because I like II, I, I’m hoping it’s the spirit that inspired you to do so because I, I loved our conversation and I felt so good about it and I think your story is not only profound and beautiful and compelling, but also so important for our day as we go forward and you talk about some of the experiences you’ve had and some of the things you feel you’re called to that II, I think will really resonate with many of us and the important messages. So um my, my other question, well, maybe, maybe, do you want to continue with your story? Did you have more things? Maybe you’ll get to it. I, I wanted to ask what your feelings were toward Brigham Young and other early church leaders and how you work through that unless you were planning to come to that at a different point in your story.

[26:53] Kimberly: Um, my feelings for Brigham Young when I was baptized were like, um, I’m not somebody who hates easy. I’ve never hated anyone. Uh, but I did hate him because because of the things that we were told. And, um, so the first time I went into relief Society, which would have been like the next Sunday because we, we had to leave early. That first Sunday I walked in and uh someone handed me the manual that they were studying for, for the time and guess who was on the front of it? It’s just like you’re the president of the

[27:31] Michelle: church, Brigham Young. I’ll bet that’s what it was.

[27:33] Kimberly: Yeah, I can believe it. She handed it to me. There was Brigham Young. It was like, and I said, thank you. Yeah. And she turned around to sit down and I walked out the door and swore I wouldn’t go back till they were done with that book. Um go to Sacrament but not Relief Society. And so, um so that’s what I did. And uh after time after a time it was, we go to the temple and I was talking to different people about what their favorite temple was because we, we lived in the Saint Louis district. Um But for some reason I felt like I was supposed to go somewhere else. Ok. I have no idea about the temples So I’m gonna ask different people what they think and, uh, I’d get told, you know, San Diego and why and just all these different ones. And then one day this woman said Manti and as soon as she said, Manti, it just clicked. I said, ok, that’s where I wanna go. Where is it? She said it’s, it’s in Manti, Utah. I was like, oh, I can’t go to Utah. That’s a scary place. It was still like, you know, weirded out by some of the stuff I’ve been told. But I knew I was supposed to go and like two, like two days I believe before we left, I was taking missionaries home from their zone conference and uh elder woods who’s sitting in the front seat and I was driving and he said, I hear you’re gonna be in Utah for like six weeks. And I said, yeah, I’m gonna meet some family that I’ve never met before and um get my endowments. And he said, are you gonna learn all about Brigham Young? And that my hands just tighten around the steering wheel. And he was the type of missionary that when the Lord works with him, his countenance would change. He got really, really quiet and I looked over and I went, oh man, now Lord’s working with him, that means I had to listen. So, so I asked him what was on his mind and he bore his testimony of the savior. And then he um first testimony of uh Brigham Young and Joseph Smith. And by the time he was done, my defenses were just all down. And um I came to a signal light that turned red and I put on the brakes and everything I ever felt against this man was taken away and it was so overpowering. I had to take in a breath and then the light turned green and we went on and when I dropped the missionaries off, I said, you know what I told him what had happened? I said, there’s a big empty space where all this hatred was. You bet I’ll learn as much as I can about Brigham Young. And so while we were going around uh the the temple area, we came to his grave. And I asked everybody for a few moments and I just catch up with them and I got down on my knees and I um said to him, I asked him to forgive me for perpetuating the hatred against his name. And then I said, I forgive you too because you said, and did things you shouldn’t have because there were things said and done on both sides of the fence that caused the problem. And I heard a choir sing near my God to thee. And it was very audible to me. And I was given to know through the spirit that everything our ancestors experienced together, even the pain they may have caused one another. They experienced those things, not us, they’re on the other side, they’ve reconciled those things. It’s wrong for us to carry it on. And that’s the kind of message I’ve been getting the whole time when I would uh bump into conflicts and stuff like that. So, so, so

[30:56] Michelle: we don’t need to carry the grudges and feel the anger and resentment of the past. That’s not our own. Ok.

[31:05] Kimberly: So what I’m saying is it’s, yeah, it’s ok to research and, and find this but be careful where your emotions take you that it’s not turning from uh you know, you’re gonna, people may find out things here and there in history that they feel like they’ve been lied to or betrayed. Um That, that that’s happened in every church organization I’ve ever heard of. There’s not a church that hasn’t had that in its past, but our challenge from the Lord is what do we do with that? I mean, because we have control and anger and betrayal goes down a one way street and at one point, if we don’t do something with it, the adversary will is gonna go either one side to love and forgiveness or it’s gonna go to the other side um to bitterness and hatred and what we choose, the direction that we choose. We determine who we are and how we become and, and the love that eyes in the Lord’s eyes. That’s, that’s, you see, that’s why, that’s why it’s so easy for me because a lot of people, like you should be the most upset because they’ve, they found what they think is a lot of evidence against this or that. Because you’re a descendant of Joseph. That’s your people. You know, and I’m just like a number one, I don’t really need to know that for my salvation. And number two, I’m not angry at anyone because if mistakes have been made, then, you know, it’s being reconciled. If they’re being taught on the other side, who might get to get angry at them and stay angry at them if they’re learning what the truth really is now. And so it’s like I, I just can’t, I can’t become angry. I have to be loving. I have to be forgiving. Why? Because the savior on the cross looked down on those people who put him up there and the immense pain he was in them, standing by his own mother and his family and he asked heaven, father to forgive them. And if he can do that under that kind of pain and um the magnitude of pain it must have been, then who am I not to forgive people for something that they’ve done to my answer? Right? Oh.

[33:12] Michelle: Oh What I, what I love so much about how you express this and the experiences you’ve had is that it’s not, I think people get confused and think that somehow if we’re not angry at someone, it means they didn’t do anything wrong, right? Like, like that, it’s either, it’s either they did this or if I say we don’t need to be angry. Well, then you’re saying that no problems happen. And that’s, but honestly is how I get accused often of hating Brigham Young and it couldn’t be further from the truth. Like I tell people, I have a son named Brigham because I didn’t know I can’t hate, you know, my son’s namesake. But, but even more I am II, I just feel like we can view it and, and I like to say this is, you know, I can do my best to put myself in someone’s shoes and go, this seems to be their character. This seems to be what they were doing and and it’s OK to talk about it and it wasn’t good and it was very, very bad, right? But we don’t need to be hateful or accusing or angry. We can just look at it honestly as historians and, and without having the emotion tied up in it. And anyway, I think I, I am curious about your feelings of um your feelings of Brigham Young that needed to be healed because I feel I do feel like we carry things for our ancestors and I kind of want to know how those developed because if you were raised, really not knowing anything about the church. So was it while you were investigating? Like, like can you tell me how that hatred developed.

[34:45] Kimberly: Um I have such a, a close connection with, with Joseph. Um Which isn’t odd. I’m, I’m his great, great granddaughter. So that’s not so odd in a family relationship that you would feel attached to one or another ancestor of yours. Um As a matter of fact, there’s, it’s been proven through DNA studies, um that, you know, emotions, experiences of ancestors are passed down through the DNA. So I’ve had several experiences where I, I know that’s true because it’s happened to me. And so when you have that kind of in depth connection with someone that kind of love, um And you hear that this other person did this, this and that to them and me being a young kid, you know, at the time, uh before I understood what a fullness of joy is and what the pure love of Christ is, uh it, it naturally just bounced over to um to bitterness and hatred. Uh And so it was, um it was basically, you know, just, just those kind of feelings um that, what kinds

[35:57] Michelle: of things did you hear? What kinds of things were you told? Because I would think it would be more about Emma, like, like I’ve so often, you know, like I didn’t know Brigham had done as much to Joseph as kind of Brigham’s treatment of Emma just is, that’s been a hard one for me to

[36:14] Kimberly: understand. Um you know, basically because the way it was put to us that he had Joseph murdered, he stole the church away. He took it out west and corrupted it. That’s a lot of kid to hear and handle. Um, when they’re, they’re viewing in their heart, their, their great, great grandfather through that image I saw on the wall and all I could see there was that, you know, pure love, you know, and, and just, you know, hear my dad the way he would talk about it would boer that bolster that, you know, build it up. So, but it was so out of character for me too because I’ve been taught by a mother who knew the pure love of Christ like no one. And so it was a conflict in me because that’s part, that’s not a part of my nature. And so that’s why whenever I, I was working on my book, Rising Hills and Sinking Valleys, it took me 15 years to write it because I would get in depth to these correspondences of, um, between the sons of Joseph, the sons of Hiram, where the debate would get really heated and they always ended it with, uh, you know, in the bonds of familial love type wording. But you could feel the ire and in the words that were going back and forth and it would become too much like it would, it would hurt, it would hurt too much and it would make me sick and I would have to put it aside. And so that’s, that’s why I learned, I needed to find a way to process all of that and get it out or it would be a residue that would just sit with me and the adversary would use that against me one day if I didn’t do something with it. And, um, so it was that experience riding with the missionaries and it, by Brigham Young’s grave where I was able to, to let let go of, of all of that. And um it’s funny because I have a really good friend, uh Chad Horton and he wrote a book called 40 Ways to Look at Brigham Young and he was visiting NFU at the time and, and we were living there and he gave me this book. He said I just had to give you this book. He thought it was a good chuckle because he knew I had dealt, had to deal with Brigham Young years before. And um so I thanked him for it and I put it, put it up on the bookshelf because it was really busy. I didn’t have time to read a new book yet. I had seen, I flipped through, I’ve seen pictures of, of him before. There were, there was one, there was he sitting in a chair and he looked so so stern. I was like, isn’t there ever a picture of Brigham Young where he’s smiling? He just always looks so stern. Well, I took a nap on the couch that day. And I had this one of those realistic dreams that you have sometimes you wanna write down. And we were in this brilliant white room and there was a big banquet going on a long white table and a lot of latter day saint peoples from the past were there. And I was there with my family and my son was there and it kind of opens up with me saying to my son, I’m going to go ask him because Brigham Young was sitting at the end of this long banquet table with his elbow up on it. And my son said, mom, you can’t talk to him. Papa won’t ever talk to you again. He’s talking about my dad if you say anything to bring him. Yeah. And I said, I know, but I gotta know I’ve got to know. So I, I went, I sat beside him and he, he turned and looked at me and his cheeks were blushed and he smiled the biggest smile and it was just, it was so beautiful. And I said, Brigham, I wanna ask you a question. You knew Joseph more than anybody did. So does my son really look like him? That was my question. And my son does look like a lot like him. But just then, and my son is a very uh loud carrying voice. He’s very jolly. And just then, Brian threw his head back and started laughing really loud because he was talking to somebody. And Brigham chuckled and he said, yes he does. And then he took my arm and he said, but my dear, you are more like him than anyone I know. And I was like, and I woke up and I went and found that book and I was breezing through it again. And there was a picture I hadn’t seen before. It was Brigham Young and a round table, he had his arm up on it just like he did on the other table and he was smiling in that picture. And I was like, well, so I it was really good for me to have that, that dream because I got to see him. Uh because this all seemed like um after, you know, we’re in the after lifetime, you know, we’re all together and it was nice to see that uh visual in front of me. I’d already dealt with everything. I’d already overcome the stuff, but it was, it was a good visual and I’m a visual person. But yeah,

[40:56] Michelle: yeah, I OK. That story is so good for me to hear because I think it is when, when dealing with this topic like polygamy, you just tend to be in the hard stuff, right? The hard things that Brigham said the unfortunate teach, there was just so much that was just, it’s just hard and so, but that but never is a person’s character. Just one side or the other. Right? And so it’s so important for us to like, like the worst person has their good moments and their good days and the best person has their bad moments and their bad days and, and it’s, it is so good to have. I’m so glad you shared that because that gives me like, I like the thought of Brigham wanting to do better and having learned and wanting to make amends and being able to go and give Brigham a hug. I like that thought and I like that image. And so I’m glad that you’re bringing that to me because I haven’t felt hatred and I haven’t felt um I haven’t, I haven’t had the generational trauma in the same way that you had with Joseph and Emma. You know, but I definitely have had kind of a, um, like I, like, I’ve, I’ve just, I’ve just been so troubled by so much of what he did and so the idea that he could smile and be loving to you as Joseph’s daughter. Yeah, I mean, as Joseph’s great granddaughter is just, that’s a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing

[42:20] Kimberly: it. You know, he, he loved Joseph. He, he loved Joseph. I know that he loved Joseph and he was, he wasn’t very tactful sometimes in how he approached things and talked about them. I understand that he needed to express his frustrations about Emma, but he could have chosen different wording and that, yeah, I’m a big, a big advocate for telling people. I know you need to say what you need to say, just find a different way to say it, you know. And, well,

[42:48] Michelle: one thing I’ve thought about, one thing I thought about Brigham is that it sort of is unfortunate to have a huge platform and total power. Who knows what that would do to any of us? Right. Like I know in my life there have been so many times needed to be corrected or you, you know, and those feelings of humiliation when you got it wrong and you know, it’s, it’s like so important for us to um or I’ve been saying something and someone corrected me or someone called me on exaggerating or, you know, there was no one Brigham had established it so that he didn’t have the benefit of any of that. He had a complete, like a free platform to say whatever he was going to say. And there was no one there to keep him honest sort of recall. Like I don’t think that the car, I, I think that um his situation outsized his, his negative um characteristics. Can I say it that way? Do you know what I mean? I think there are a lot of people who maybe would be much worse than Brigham if they had that same amount of power and influence with not being checked for that many decades and, and bad ideas that had been planted. Right. And so anyway, so I think, I think that’s one way that’s helped me a little bit is like, oh, I’m glad I wasn’t in that situation.

[44:01] Kimberly: Yeah. Yeah. Um, when you consider what was at stake at the time that that is a lot to carry, um, I, I’m trying to recall what story this is but I, I remember Brigham Young saying something, he was talking about something to somebody and he really kind of let loose, you know, and then pulled himself together and it was in front of a crowd and he, he got up again and said before you heard from Britney, now you’re going to hear from the prophet. Yes. So it’s like there, I think there were those times where he caught himself and um but it would just be so hard. I have, I have no guile at all against Brigham Young. One of the things that I love the most that, that the Lord showed me is one was an analogy and it was about uh a ship and I, I looked at the church as this big ship, but there’s a lot of other ships that’s going to the same place our ships going, you know, but our ship has the most um furniture in it is over the truth. And, and so if you wanna stay on that, but people are bumping into all these stains, there’s stains on the floor and there shouldn’t be, you know, I’m not gonna jump ship because there’s stains on the floor because I know the Lord is going to come back one day and he’ll help, you know, he’ll take care of those stains. Yeah. I, I don’t want to jump ship and go to another ship that they all have stains on them. Do you see what I’m saying? That’s kind of one, that’s one thing that, that he was showing the other one was um the example of Peter. And this is what I think about when people talk about this or that person made mistakes and stuff is that Peter denied Christ three times. And to me that’s like the biggest mistake someone, someone can make is huge. But, you know, they, all of the disciples struggled after the crucifixion, but they, they processed it all, they came back together and they, the Lord didn’t throw them under the bus, he didn’t pull them out from being the rock that the church was built on. You know, they came back together and um they overcame those things and together, finished building the foundation of the church. And so that’s uh I guess that’s why when I hear a lot of things and I do bump into a lot of different things. I, I, I just try not to be judgmental because the, the Lord is so forgiving. And so, and the Lord knows more than I do about these situations because I wasn’t there. Um You know, to see it all unfold. You know how it is. When you hear a rumor about somebody today and it on social media, everybody just kind of believes everything that’s out there. And then when the truth finally comes out, it’s so different than what was put out there. So it’s just like I, that’s why I’m so cautious about, um, you know, delving in to, to anything and, and letting my emotions go away with it. When you say,

[47:08] Michelle: OK, when you, I, I have to, I have to clarify a little bit because when you say my, what I always say is we take a deep dive, you know, so when you say Delving in, can you just describe a little more what you mean?

[47:21] Kimberly: Um Delving in? Yeah, I guess I should have had more adjectives with that. Uh Just be careful in delving and not to let the attachments do anything to you. Like not, not let attachments get, get onto you and cause this residue and bitterness to build up um for everybody to understand how and why things happened. Um uh The history is so important to us to understand and we need to understand it uh with clarity and understand what really happened. Uh No matter what kind of history we’re talking about. Um but it’s, it’s not being able to put it behind you that that’s caused, it’s the most cause of problems in the Mideast today, but they’re still fighting about things from generations ago, right? And so it’s the inability to put things behind you and not let it attach.

[48:20] Michelle: So, so maybe be able as we delve in, as we, you know, take as we delve into our history, do so with a prayer of charity, recognizing that without charity, you’re nothing right. And charity is what this whole life is about. So please help me to be able to feel love, feel unity, feel compassion and understanding for as I study these difficult things. II, I guess I needed to be a lot of people say, why do you want to, why are you opening that can of worms? Why? Like that doesn’t have anything to do with this anymore? And I think you’re saying a very different thing, what they’re saying is stay ignorant, right? Don’t, don’t get the information, don’t be informed. And what I’m hearing you saying is get the information and be informed but stay centered in peace and love and charity. Am I understanding correctly? Yeah,

[49:09] Kimberly: I mean, if you feel, feel led to delve in, you know, I don’t see anything wrong with that. I have so many people ask me why, why did you study the lives of, of, uh, Governor Ford and Thomas? And I said I wanted to understand what made them the way they were for one thing. And then I wanted to and, you know, it’s very, very, very sad. Um, what kind of lives they had after Joseph’s death and I had compassion for them. Um, and it’s, it’s one of my goals to, to put flowers on their graves one day because I’ve forgiven that I’ve forgiven them for that. And I think they need that. They need to, to know that from a, from at least me and other descendants that, you know, we’re not holding on to that because they’re all over there and they understand everything now and they, they understand what they’ve done wrong. Um And for someone like Ford and um sharp, that’s, that’s a pretty heavy weight to have to carry. So I think part of part of their release comes from our being able to release our hard feelings against them. And so I love that.

[50:25] Michelle: So it carrying those hard feelings does not serve us, does not help make the world a peaceful place. And it’s sort of a gift that we can give ourselves the world and both our ancestors and those who, who we’re hard on our ancestors, right? Who cursed our like, it’s just in every way, the right approach. It just does pure good. And the and, and not doing it is a really big missed opportunity. I love hearing how God healed your heart and how you’ve been able

[50:53] Kimberly: to. Yeah. And you know, I, I think, I think I mentioned to you um I call it the hamster wheel that I mentioned that to you the other day when we come I think the adversary has a hamster wheel and that’s the, the, he likes to, for us to get on that hamster rule of delving in the past. But staying there and, uh, staying there and, uh, but some of these things, we won’t get 100% answers for, there’s just some of them and we won’t. And getting entangled in that tool that just consumes your, every, every thought because he does not want us focused on the gospel today and our role in it. And, and so we’re living at a time, the times are changing so fast. Like it used to be over decades, it was changing. That’s like in the last four years, the monumental changes that’s been happening and our focus needs to be on what’s coming and how are we going to deal with that? You know, um Are we staying aligned with Christ so that we can deal with these changes that are coming? That’s, that’s what, that’s what our focus needs to be. I’m not saying it’s not OK to research and you know, it’s, it is, but I’m just like, don’t let it consume. Don’t get on that hamster wheel where you’re being taken away or

[52:11] Michelle: don’t, yeah, don’t, don’t get turned away from God and like as our, let our studies turn us to God, not away, right? And everything I, I wanna, so you um if I’m understanding correctly, you were baptized in the church still with a hard heart toward Brigham at the time that you were baptized and, and, and I, I mean, I know that was healed, you know, but, and that sounded like I was accusing you of not at all. It’s very understandable. I think a lot of people feel that now. But, um, and then also not believing, like, like you believed that Brigham had all of these problems or, or did things that were wrong before you were baptized. And I, and, and yet made the choice to be baptized because that’s what God, where God directed you. Am I understanding that correctly?

[53:00] Kimberly: Yeah, because um like I said, it’s about following the Holy Ghost and you know, if, if mistakes were made, I can’t help that I wasn’t there and I didn’t know that person. You know what I mean? So I, I,

[53:15] Michelle: the reason I’m asking is because so many people who either grew up in the church or were baptized into the L DS church, you know, then they find out these things, they find out some of the things that Brigham Young said and that he did and that they find out more about polygamy and they think they have to leave the church. And so that’s what I’m, that’s one of the spaces I’m trying to be is like we can be in this church while having our eyes open to false traditions, which is exactly what the book of Mormon warns us of. Right. That’s So I wanted to draw attention to that because that’s something that’s important to me is to help people understand that. II, I think we’re raised in such a paradigm of the prophets cannot do anything wrong that it really shakes people up to learn. Wait, wait, the prophets did something wrong. Right. So I just wanted to kind of draw attention to that and how you look at that. You, you’re just saying it’s about Jesus Christ. So whatever one leader did is kind of irrelevant. It’s about the Lord. And

[54:13] Kimberly: you really, um I mean, I, I’ve moved all over the place all my life, but like ever since joining the church, I’ve lived in several different places. So I’ve been a lot of different wards, I’ve bumped into people uh who are in leadership that did things they shouldn’t have been doing. Um and um some of them in height leadership and it’s just like, you know, they’re on their journey too and they’re learning so I can’t cast them out for making mistakes and misjudgments and going down the wrong path because, you know, hopefully they’ll get pulled back on the right path and I, I wanna be there for them when that happens and it’s, I kind of equate it with if you’re going to school uh for higher learning and you find out that several of the teachers are corrupt. Um I wouldn’t leave that school. I would stay in the school. So I could continue to gain my knowledge. You know, that, um, I think that’s the best way to put it because I can’t help it if other people are making mistakes. And I’m not saying that I’m the scholar that knows every little thing that peoples of the past did. Um, I’m just, you know, I’m just saying if mistakes were made, um, that’s between, you know, them and the Lord to reconcile and for us it’s for us, we have that challenge of can you can you just process this and forgive them because they were human, they made a mistake and you stay on your journey?

[55:48] Michelle: OK. So, so what charting your journey thus far? So you were called to the church through all of these amazing experiences, then you were called to join and then you were healed from your feelings of um hardheartedness of pain, right? And then you came to Utah and I didn’t even realize Brigham was buried in at the Man Thai Temple. That’s where his grave is. I guess I

[56:11] Kimberly: should have, I should have clarified that we were going around the Salt Lake Temple.

[56:16] Michelle: Oh OK. OK. That makes I was like I was talking to spa in Salt Lake. OK. So you came. All right. Thank you for clarifying that. So I didn’t get confused. And so then um can you tell us more of your journey? Because like it sounds like you have felt called to do certain things called to work that you, you know, I, I want to know where you went from there.

[56:39] Kimberly: Um, I, I have had several, what I call revelatory dreams where things were kind of laid out that, that I would be doing. And a lot of it just involves, um, like the firesides that I do. The content is a lot of, it’s my conversion and then also why Emma stayed and some of the things she went, uh she stayed in nou and some of the things that she endured after Joseph’s death. But um it’s all, it’s all. Pardon?

[57:07] Michelle: Would you mind filling, filling us in on some of that? Some of what you share in studying Emma was one of the highlights for me. And so, so what, what would you mind sharing some of your insights about Emma, your great great

[57:20] Kimberly: grandmother? Did you know she was left handed?

[57:25] Michelle: I did not know that. Ok, there’s the first thing we know

[57:29] Kimberly: she was left handed. Um She had a pretty quick wet. I don’t know if you know the story about the um the pastries that she would make. Did you know that story? No, tell us,

[57:42] Michelle: please.

[57:43] Kimberly: So she made pastries. Um She loved making twisted donuts and so she’d keep twisted donuts for the grandkids um all the time. And so the last time, um her birthday celebration, I, we me and some friends went with twisted donuts to eat them by her grave. So that’s how we celebrate it. But she had this one little round pastry that she would make it kind of like a puff pastry and she couldn’t stand politicians because they were always coming and taking up Joseph’s times, you know, how politicians are. And um this one politician would just consume all of these puff pastries. And she, he said, I really love these puff puff pastries. He said, what do you call them? And she said, candidates all puffed up with full air

[58:28] Michelle: so

[58:29] Kimberly: good. But, um, she, uh, there’s a really good book called Reflections Of Emma that have some of these stories in it. And, um, there, there are things that were recorded in her grandchildren’s journal that they observed about their, their grandma. And, um, she, I have so much admiration for her be because of the way that she held herself high, uh, amidst all of the, all of the different things that were being said about her and people coming from the West and reporting back and you have to take in consideration the people that were coming and visiting Emma, they were taking everything at face value and they didn’t understand that when people from the west would come. Emma’s defenses would go up because she didn’t trust anybody. And so she, if they even got close to talking about personal matters, she just put this wall up and, you know, she’d say, well, that’s personal and she wouldn’t talk to them sometimes she wouldn’t see people. So these reports would get carried back to the west to bring him young, that Emma. Emma wouldn’t see us or Emma was very cold to us. And of course, that would grow and he’s getting this picture of Emma according to what he’s being told from people. So you can see how that, that plays into things. He’s, he’s getting a perspective. Um, I had someone tell me not long ago, if, if, when they were older, if they could have just sat down and talked with one another about what this one heard on this side and this one heard on that side. And, and so I, you know, there were a lot of things like that going on the talking back and forth and the perspectives that were being carried out west and carried to the Midwest. And um like I said, she was, she was at a point where she didn’t trust anybody. And that’s actually where she was when Joseph died. Because from the time of Kirtland, if you think of the Kirtland time period, this was a period where they had been rejected by society. So anybody who came into the church as a member, they became like family, there was a bond of trust that they had uh because society was rejecting them. So they were very close knit. And then when you had those very close knit members of the family, um turning against you and swear, swearing out affidavits against your husband. You know, that trust is broken and I’m sure that was devastating for her. And she was close to many of the women who went to Missouri ahead of her. And then by the time she gets to Missouri, some of those women and their families have been excommunicated. Um they, they swore out affidavits against Joseph. They’re part of the persecution process. And so this happens a lot over and over again and then the government and how they were treated by the government. So you can understand by the time they’re in navoo, how she doesn’t trust anyone but her husband. And then now in 1844 he’s gone. And so at that, at that moment, she becomes, she goes into survival mode and um she feels like no one’s gonna take care of her but herself and that’s why she went to file to be administrator of the estate. Uh because Joseph had not left a will and it was, it was a mess that took 10 years to settle. And um she wasn’t able to do that because she had to have money to pay for the there was a fee with becoming the administrator and she didn’t have the money. And so there were just things like that that happened uh throughout the process after her, her death that she was cons his death, she was constantly trying to survive. And uh it was really, really hard because they were left destitute. So this estate took 10 years to settle. There’s a really good article by D and ho called, um, Joseph Smith. And this, yeah. Oh, it’s full of so much history and how, how the church got into the debt uh with the US government because of the sale of a boat from Robert E Lee to church members. Anyway. Um, that became like this huge part of that estate settlement. But it, it took 10 years and she, when all said Joseph

[1:02:35] Michelle: was in bankruptcy court was in bankruptcy court when Emma died. And, yeah. Mhm. And that a lot because I’m doing an episode on the deeds because people use the deeds to try to claim that their evidence of polygamy. And so anyway, so that’s why I’m delving into it. But yes, go ahead. I’m sorry to interrupt

[1:02:55] Kimberly: it. Yeah, I think, I don’t know if it’s come out yet but, um, I know Joseph Smith papers was doing a volume on that included the estate issue. Um, because they’ve come up, they’ve bumped into uh, other documents that they didn’t have when Dnh Oakes wrote his article. So, so I, I think it’s gonna have new information um about the estate issue. Uh, but it was really hard because when all was said and done, she did get, I think about $1800 which was a lot back then. But she had to use that to pay off the taxes on her homes and, um, she was even left with some of the church that to,

[1:03:34] Michelle: but she settled with a lot of debt. My understanding is that Joseph the third was still working on the debts. Well into his adulthood, the letter from Emma to Joseph the third

[1:03:45] Kimberly: saying that she’s, yeah, I think it was up to six years before she died before she was able to pay everything, everything I did. But she did. She had a, she was so well thought of in that town. Um uh And I love what her stepson um Charlie vitamin said about her um that she was a woman of queenly bearing without the arrogance of being a queen. And that’s, I love, I love that description of her. And I, I don’t know if you know the story of Charlie or not, but if you’ve seen um Emma Smith, my story, it starts out the story of, of him. And what’s beautiful about Emma’s heart is um that she, she not only forgave her husband and the woman for having the affair, um She asked them on her deathbed to get married after she was gone and make it right. And you know what woman they would do that kind of thing. And

[1:04:47] Michelle: uh and while she was living, she brought her into her home to like, like your husband’s mistress to bring her into your home so she can be near her, their baby, right? And one thing I I have to, I know I talk, we talked about this in our call. But one thing that just hurts my heart is that I’ve heard that used so many times as kind of like Emma finally learned her lesson about polygamy. She finally learned to be ok with polygamy because of, you know, they use the vitamin story with with, is it Nancy Abercrombie? Is that her name? Maybe I’m getting it wrong. But um but if that is so frustrating to me and fir first of all, as I said to you, first of all, that acknowledges the truth that polygamy is the same as adultery, right? If they’re saying Emma learned to live with adultery just like she needed to learn to live with polygamy, it’s acknowledging that they are actually the same thing. It also is so demeaning of Emma where like she needed to learn her lesson where it’s, it’s like no, this the situation with her hus with vitamin reveals her character. It reveals what her character always was, right? A woman who had been jealous of her husband, having other wives as an older woman would be even more upset and more jealous, right? That you can’t make that kind of a dramatic shift from how they claim Emma was to what we know of her life, what we know who she we know who she

[1:06:17] Kimberly: was. Yeah, I I haven’t read the, the documents that talk about this is where they use Emma, I haven’t, you know, to stand up for their side of play. I haven’t read those so I really can’t comment on that. But what I can say is that I know it’s just an example of Emma’s heart and who she was. She had a huge love for Children. She, when, when the woman, when Nancy approached her to take in Charlie because she couldn’t afford to take care of him anymore. Emma’s heart was broken to see a mother and a child separated. So she hired her as a housekeeper so she could be with her son. And that’s, that’s the sign of a pure love of Christ right there. And that’s, that’s all that was. She had always been very obedient to God. She had always been a very compassionate woman, especially when it came to Children and she took in kids. You can find people, uh, living with her young, young people living with her in the census reports. Um, years and years and years later, she was always taking in people who needed to be cared for.

[1:07:26] Michelle: And she had done that her whole life too because like the, not like the stories that Lucy told of the house being. So she was always taking care of the sick, always bringing in the, the new comers and Lucy talking about Joseph throwing down his coat and laying down on it and Emma laying in his arm and that’s where they would sleep for the night because they had people in every single bed in the home. Right? And, you know, it isn’t that what she always did? And I guess what I, the thing that’s so striking about the, um, the Charlie by Vitamin story is that, like, like, think about that, this is, you’ve been cheated on before. According to our stories, you know, like, like Joseph broke her heart constantly is what is, what the polygamist story is. And then her second husband, she finds out he’s also having an affair because she didn’t want to see that. She brings that woman into her home where he would not only be around, she would not only be around her son but around her husband. Right? Like that is the, the most extreme example of lack of jealousy that I can begin to imagine. I, I get, I mean, I don’t think most, yeah, we can’t, I don’t think most of us can imagine doing that. And that yet that’s what she did because that’s who she was. And so it just makes it impossible. The stories that were told about her being. So the stories that William Clayton and um Brigham Young and others told about her. So thank you for telling us a little bit about Emma. I know you’ve talked a lot about how Joseph kind of has your heart and it really is Emma that, um that has been a minister to me that has Emma is who I feel like I know. So that’s, yeah, that’s beautiful.

[1:09:06] Kimberly: She, um, I love the stories that Joseph Smith, the third writes about when the Native Americans would come over with Chief Chief Koku. And it’s through Chief Kia Kuk, wife that Emma gets a lot of her knowledge from, uh, medicinal herbs from. And of course, she shared some with her as well. And so it’s just this nice little glimpse. We don’t always get that. Uh And, and he talked about the, the games they would play and how fascinated he was with the Tomahawk throwing and, you know, it’s just a fun read because we get to see a human side of, of the family. And um uh it’s just, she gave, she gave a lot to that community and became one of the most uh beloved citizens, citizens. I know when she died, she had thousands and thousands of people who came through and viewed her uh body as well. So,

[1:09:57] Michelle: wow. OK. OK. Thank you for sharing those insights. So tell me, um what other, what other things you want to share with us? Like would you, would you mind sharing some more about kind of what you’ve been called to do with your firesides? And sort of you, you told me some beautiful stories about being, feeling called to unify and to help bring.

[1:10:20] Kimberly: Yeah. And together. Yeah, like the, the overall tone of my fireside. I do talk about Emma, I talk about my conversion. But um, the central theme is um aligning yourself with the Savior, um, the gathering of Israel and unity and the pure love of Christ. Those, those are the main components. And I, I just tell how those things have affected my life and I, how I’ve, um been pulled towards those things throughout my journey. And it’s because I know what a fullness of joy feels like. I want other people to feel that too. And I’m not saying other people don’t feel that, but I just, I don’t like seeing all the conflict and, and the, the discord and the division and the, those are things that have come up in several of my dreams and uh where Joseph was trying to teach the people and they’d all come together and then he would go for a while and then within a short amount of time, they’d all be divided again and you just keep having to come back. And it’s, it’s just this whole idea of how can we expect to be a people that can be gathered when we can’t even, you know, agree to disagree, agreeably is what I call it. And uh you know, be a united people despite our differences. And that’s the biggest message is, is this challenge that we’ve been given is like those first two greatest commandments. The second being, love your neighbor. That that’s I think the one that’s the most challenging for us, it’s, it’s been given to us to try and master that challenge. And that means we have to learn how to be able to be a united people despite our differences. And that, that’s why I do the firesides. That’s, you know, that’s why I talk about the importance of um finding a balance and all of these things. We, we have to, it’s hard, it’s, it’s so hard today in these times, it’s not just about polygamy on one side or the other. It’s about, you know, gender changes and all of these controversial things that we’re faced with today. And how can we be a united people uh with people who think so differently than what we do? How can we be united under Christ? Yeah. And that’s where the full, you know, the pure love of Christ comes. It’s all about how much we love one another. And um you know, what we do with that love and not letting bitterness and um anger, anger get in there. The frustration I think is ok. I mean, it’s, it’s normal, it’s normal to become angry. Actually, it’s, it’s normal to be frustrated. That’s frustrating. It’s like I said before, it’s what you do with that uh that determines who you are and how you become. Yeah, you don’t,

[1:13:12] Michelle: you don’t have to, you don’t have to respond when you’re frustrated. Like I know I do much better if I, when someone makes a really hurtful comment or accuses me or gives me a really unfair harsh criticism. I do better if I can just take a minute and then, you know, as, and then either not respond or when I feel like I can respond and say, hey, that’s good feedback, you know, like, like it or, or huh I see it this way when I can respond with just like you said, without the emotion, without the hooks and, and um so I wanted you to talk about a little about how you think because we do have these political divides and morality divides. And I mean, we are in a really, really divisive time. And so it isn’t like, like, first of all, with the issue of say polygamy, I, what I struggle with is people in my, in, in the church that are like, you can’t be one of us if you say that you, you know, like if you say that out loud, you can’t be here and um that I struggle with because I don’t tell anyone they have to agree with me. And so it’s hard for me to be told you’re gonna be, you know, we want you kicked out, we, we don’t want you with us. That’s a hard thing to hear. So I think disagreement is not only fine, it’s inevitable, it’s baked in. It’s just a matter of how we like, like can we let people be among us who don’t think the same thing that we think and who are willing to say that they don’t think that the same thing we think. Why? Anyway, II, I guess I want to hear some of your insights about how we do that, how we have that unity in these difficult times. And then maybe I’ll share a couple of my thoughts if that’s all right.

[1:14:52] Kimberly: You know, it’s interesting because while I was living in Nabu over the summer, there was a huge dispute about the new visitor center that’s being built there. And it’s caused a lot of division amongst the church members and the between themselves and between and this, um there’s the regular citizens that live there too. You know, everybody as a whole were just kind of divided on this and it, it became very heated. And somebody said to me once, what do you think Joseph would do? I was like, I hate these questions. I said, well, you know, knowing Joseph, he would have gone out of his way not to cause any, any problems with his neighbors and built it in a different spot if that was gonna make peace unless that’s where the word to put it. And um they said, well, surely you have an opinion. I said, yeah, I don’t have an opinion. I, I said, I just, I just, I don’t, uh I kind of think back, someone had made the comment that, uh you know, Jesus didn’t have a problem telling people off when he needed to. And I’m like, I don’t look at it that way. There’s a lot of times when I look at the, the scriptures and he’s in the midst of some kind of turmoil and somebody asks him this question, like one of the Pharisees or something, like expecting him to say something that will cause a big debate, you know, and he always terrible, a parable that they could learn from, you know, and so when it comes to things like that and the political environment and it’s so heated and crazy right now, um I always always look to the scriptures because, because where we’re going is where we’re going, we’re on a slippery slope now. It’s, it’s going where it’s going. And I really don’t think there’s a way to stop it, but I think there is a way to process it and that’s, that’s through the scriptures, you know, we’ve been told about these times and several books of the Bible, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Ephesians there, Daniel, there’s all these different scriptures that, that talk um about the times we live in and we’re given instruction through those scriptures on, on how to handle it. And it all is geared towards being aligned with the savior, being aligned with our heavenly Father and the Holy Ghost. And so I’ve made it part of my regimen not to do anything that would take me out of that alignment. And so I’ve, I’ve learned not to become offended and that’s what I was told I hope you don’t mind if I ask, you know, the question. I, I just tell, I never get offended and I don’t, um, because I know where that leads. And so I, I learned a long time ago to stop being offended but it’s, it, it, it is hard, it’s hard to get to that point. Um, especially today and I would not want to be a kid growing up today and I’ve worked in the school system, I quit last year. Uh It’s so hard for them right now. And so I think we adults, we’ve at least got some years of study and knowledge behind us to be able to kind of handle these things in adults with these, these kids. That’s what I worry about is the, the generation growing up right now.

[1:18:18] Michelle: Absolutely. I absolutely. And being raised almost in this nur this time of what I consider to be like, like basic truths, they’re being taught to not believe basic f foundational truth. And then also, um division is being nurtured. It’s almost like the more offense you can take, the more moral you are right. And so it is hard and I do, I was looking up, I was trying to find, I think it’s Daniel 11. I love when Jesus and I, I might be getting my scriptures wrong. So my, my producer might have to fix them on the screen for me, but I believe it’s in Matthew 24 where Jesus says, um let him who readeth understand he’s talking about the last days. And that I think cross references to Daniel where it says they have understanding is talking about the last days and they have understanding do many wonderful works. And you know, it’s really the people who become the people of God in that time are the people of understanding. So Jesus is saying, when you see all of this chaos happening, be in this group of people who understand. And I think what that means is exactly what you’re talking about. It’s those who understand what we’re called to do, which isn’t to fight the battle and win the battle necessarily. It’s to be peacemakers, right? To be charitable to like, like I love the brought up Jesus because what occurred to me is he was so so familiar with the scriptures and so inspired that he was able to sort of like, like play above them, right? They were playing checkers and trying to catch him and he would make some 3d chess move that they had no answer to, right? That happened again and again, even whether whether it was with a parable or sometimes it was like when they were saying whose son is David and he, and he said, you know, he, he, he would, he would have a scripture that would be so far above them, it would stump them. And I find like, I guess what I’m thinking is, oh if I want to say something divisive or proving my point or argumentative, maybe I need to take another example of Jesus and be more inspired and more wise and spend more time in my scripture so that I can, I can play a say something that’s above the game that is being played right here. Right? I do. You get what I’m saying? Like to try to bring things to a higher level that will just s silence the debate or, or at least not drag me into it. And so, and then another thing that I have found helpful to me and I, I can share, you know, it’s one thing to know it. It’s another thing to always do it. I sure try, but I sure don’t always succeed. But one thing I try to do is when I see a person, it’s so easy to see them as a representative of their group, especially if it’s a group that I disapprove of. Right. And, or that I disagree with. And if I can instead see them as a beloved child of God and not worry about the group, not put all of the weight of everything I disagree with about them on them, but just see the child of God, like praying God, help me to see them through your eyes, right? And then I can deal with that person, human to human child of God, to child of God without the issues having to be the first thing that, right? And so that’s been a helpful strategy for me to try to adopt the be, I mean, it is hard, it is hard. So,

[1:21:35] Kimberly: yeah. So, yeah,

[1:21:37] Michelle: yeah. Do you want to share some of the experiences you had where you felt called to that? I, I loved some of the dreams you shared with me of how you saw,

[1:21:48] Kimberly: you know, I’ll share the one of the um there, there was the one I, I won’t tell the whole thing, but the, the one where Joseph came and taught the people and that because they were in discord, they kept coming back. Um uh In, in that one, I was, I would stay back and not go with him because I didn’t, I didn’t like contention. Um So, so

[1:22:11] Michelle: the people were contending and Joseph would go to the contending people and teach them and they’d be peaceful when he taught them. Is that right? And then they

[1:22:20] Kimberly: would be all united and he would leave again. And the third time that he came back, he took me with him. So

[1:22:27] Michelle: when he would leave again, they would be in discord again. Like as soon as he would leave, they would start contending,

[1:22:32] Kimberly: right? And um he took me with him the third time and I was there while he taught the people and uh then when he left and they were all fine again and he left, um as he left, um his his ring that he was wearing, slipped off into my hand and I kind of closed my fist over it and held it to my heart and I woke up and, um, I was just going to know when I asked what that meant that, you know, I, I have a responsibility to carry on that attempt to keep the people united and, you know, to, to teach truth, um, especially, you know, the, the very basic truths that come from the savior and to adhere to that second greatest commandment. Because if we can’t, if we can’t get that second greatest commandment, right? Nothing else that we do matters because that’s what that means at the end of it where it says all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. And so that’s why my focus is so on unity. And that, that dream taught me specifically that it’s not just my responsibility, it’s anyone who knows what that means um to have that balance of loving one another should be out there teaching other people what’s at stake. Um If we don’t create that balance and what it takes to create that balance. And so that’s um that’s one of the experience. But, but the one I love the most that I told you about was the um where I was walking up a hill and there was an old w man and woman who lived up there that I just loved so much. And I loved doing anything for them. And as I’m passing by their barn, there was a young man who had put up a lien to and it had a sign that said, well, um, we’ll work for food. And so I felt sorry for him, but I also felt kind of afraid because I didn’t know who he was. So I went up and knocked on the door and, uh, no one answered and I opened the door and all the rooms were sectioned off by curtains. And, um, the woman came out and I said, there’s a, there’s a man down by your barn. And she said, yes, I know. And she said, he’s fine. And I said, ok, well, the man came out and called all his sons to him and said, he had something for them to do and I rushed forward ahead of them and I said, oh, please, please can, can you let me, can you let me do it? And he just thought for a moment and he said, ok, I have several £100 of hay that needs to be gathered in the field tonight. And he gave me a pitchfork. So like, ok, and you know, I get out the door and I was like, oh, what have I done? You know, as it was just like, how am I gonna do this? And I’m walking down the hill wondering how I’m gonna accomplish such a huge task with such a simple tool. And I get down to the bottom of the hill and there’s a curtain drawn across the, the field and it’s just stubble and I pulled the curtain back and the whole field was stubble. So I ran back and the man was gone that the lean two had fallen over and I ran back up the hill, open the door and the man was laying on a cot and he was wounded and bleeding all over. And the woman was tending his wounds. And I, I said, is he, is he gonna be ok? And she said, yeah, he’ll be fine. And, um, I woke up knowing that I had an immediate answer what it meant and that, that had been the savior, um, who was wounded on the bed. And, um, that I was the simple tool and the, the message that I got from that was even if you don’t think you’re adequate or, um, have what it takes or you don’t feel the self worth to accomplish something that you, you know, you’ve been led to do. If you go forward with the intention of doing it, you’ll get there and find the saviors done most of the work already. And that happened right before I started doing firesides because I was terrified of doing the firesides. I had kind of closed myself off all of those years because of what had happened to me when I was little and to get up in front of a crowd was very terrifying to me. Um And that, and I had so many doubts about myself and that, that dream is, is the one that I’ve always looked back to, to tell me that it doesn’t matter how simple you think you are, go with the intention of doing what you’ve been called to do and, and the Lord will help you along the way. Um And so I, that’s, that’s my favorite one that is

[1:27:13] Michelle: so beautiful and so profound. I love it. And I, it makes me um I, I guess I don’t want people to watch this episode and think, oh wow, she’s had, she has a profound calling or, you know, like, like I’ve shared what sort of my calling is right now. I strongly believe that we all have callings, right? That every single one of us, the second we ask Lord, how can I help? What can I do? And if we ask it with an honest, sincere heart, not trying to build up our own king, you know, like I, I once heard um I think it was sherry do actually say something that I love. She said, be careful of people who are building their own kingdom instead of God’s kingdom, right? And, and people can think with but, but I like that. So if we ask with a sincere servants heart, Lord, am I here to help? What can I do? I really believe that we are given our little. It might not feel like very much and it might, you might not feel like you’re very capable of it. And yet just, I love, I love that so much. Just take the next step, just go ahead and the saviors will have done most of it for us or at least

[1:28:21] Kimberly: open the way. Well, and yeah, just start walking that way because I think a lot of times when we halt because we don’t feel like we’re capable, then the, the doors don’t open that would have made it capable. But I think when the Lord sees us walking that way, even though we doubt ourselves, he starts opening those doors and I think he waits, he waits to see if we’re willing to walk that way, uh, before the door. So that’s certainly what I found anyway. And, and yeah, I know there’s like it, it takes every, everybody doing specific things. Some people have responsibilities that are huge. Some people have responsibilities that aren’t that big but are very necessary. And I liken it to the parts of an airplane. President UF would love me right now saying this. But, you know, you would, if you know the workings of an airplane, you know, it, it takes the hydraulics to make those wings work and you can’t fly a plane without wings. And so those are, those big parts are necessary. But even if that one little screw gets fractured, then the whole plane’s gonna come apart. So it takes, it takes everybody doing things in all sectors to, to, to bring the people together and to, to teach the, the, the gospel and the pure love of Christ and unity.

[1:29:49] Michelle: Oh, I love it. So, so I’m thinking Jesus taught it through the body of Christ. And you and President Uar do teach it through the airplane of Christ, right? It’s the same principle of each of us doing our part. Another, I do want it because I just had a talk with a friend who’s, who’s was kind of saying I, like I was supposed to do this, but I just don’t feel like I’m accomplishing it. And I can’t, I think another thing to recognize is how unendingly patient the Lord is and how often answers or direction come earlier than we’re ready for it. Or then the do II, I knew me like, like I have a large family. I have 13 Children. And um, and I knew long, long ago that I had work to do and I always struggled because how can I do what I feel called to do while I’m, while I’m also being called to have Children, right? And it just took patience until the Lord was like, ok, now is the time. And so all of those years that I felt like I wasn’t living up to what I was being told or, you know, I think that it’s also a matter of sometimes just planting seeds and just saying, Lord I’m here when you need me and you know, being called to care for a family, provide for a family, take care of Children or take care of a elderly parent. Those are all part of it. It’s not separate from that. So, so the because even if it might even just be a question of Lord, can you show me how you’re using me or how I am an instrument? If my life feels maybe busy but mundane, right? I think I don’t want people to, to struggle to feel it. It’s just the peace and patience is what we’re after. Not like relentless striving anyway. Yeah,

[1:31:31] Kimberly: we wanna become, we wanna become like our father in heaven that way and, and be patient and understanding um more than anything um empathetic for sure, you know, to always be putting ourselves in other people’s places. And I think that helps us understand what they’re going through then that makes us more patient. So that’s why that’s why it comes to Emma. I try to tell people don’t look at her as a prophet’s wife because that, that makes you think of her way up here. Look at her as a human being and a mother and look at everything she’s gone through and put yourself in her place and ask yourself, could you have handled it? Um And so there’s a lot to be said for being empathetic, especially in these times. So

[1:32:18] Michelle: that’s, that’s beautiful. And actually that’s a way that we can prepare to be better instruments in the hands of the Lord, right? Like, like we can spend some time really learning empathy, unity, trying to engage in that unifying way. That’s so

[1:32:35] Kimberly: beautiful. I think that there’s a lot of mindset with some people that um and not just in our church, just uh all across the board where they think they have to fix what they think is broken in society and what our kids are being taught about different, on different platforms these days. And, um, I, I think, you know what it is is that we just, we need to understand these are young Children that are being taught certain things, you know, from a young age. I used to, I used to wonder why it’s gonna take 1000 years for the Lord to, to reteach everybody. Right. And now I’m starting to understand it’s gonna take 1000 years to, to break up the mindset that’s been formed just over the last 100 years and a few generations of living that, that mindset for it to set into stone before, know the end of that millennial reign. It’ll, it’ll take that long to fix. Mm. So that’s,

[1:33:38] Michelle: that’s kind of ok. I don’t, that’s kind of discouraging but I’ll just, ok, I can do, you know what I mean? It’s like,

[1:33:45] Kimberly: I think that it’s just so hard. Yeah, I just think knowing that kind of helps me to. Ok, so I, I don’t need to worry about, I don’t need to focus on, I need to fix this. I need to just, yeah, I need to focus on. Ok, what are they going through that? They’re being like this? What’s made them this way? How can I help them, um, balance that out? You know, how can I, how can I be their friend and how can I show them the pure love of Christ? And, and at that point, if you’re showing them the pure love of Christ and to the fullness, then the Lord will take over and do the rest and you know, it’ll be up to that person to be receptive to that too. It’s contingent upon that. But, but that’s what we can do, you know.

[1:34:35] Michelle: Uh I love that. So yeah, we can, we can listen without judgment and we can love and understand. Oh OK. I, I want to understand your journey that I don’t understand rather than I want to judge you and tell you that you’re

[1:34:49] Kimberly: wrong. Exactly that.

[1:34:51] Michelle: Ok. That’s beautiful. OK. Tell me if people are. So what are your plans now? I know that you are kind of in a transition period where you aren’t teaching and are, aren’t working in the school. So what, what do you hope feel called to or hope that you will do in this next chapter of your life?

[1:35:13] Kimberly: So I started off by spending the summer in Nabu. And I, I spoke to a lot of different tour groups, um, that came, came through and I did some tours. I like taking people to the, out of the way places of Nabu, like Joseph’s farm and telling some of the stories they don’t know about. And, um, other than that I’m picking up on doing firesides more frequently. Um, like we did, we did a lot of firesides up until 2015 and then, um, only did them in the summers. And so I’m going back to doing firesides again. And, um, so whatever opens up, I’ll just, I’ll, I’ll just go, let’s go, I’ll just go and do you know?

[1:35:56] Michelle: OK, so I, I have to say Kimberly invited me to come to Nabu, I’m sure she invites all of us to come to Navoo. Right. And, and so I am doing my best to arrange that. And what I, I guess I hope is that maybe we could share that more broadly. You showing all of us around n if I’m able to come. So I, I would love that. So I am, I, I will say I’m going to try my best to arrange that and I think we can do it. I think we’ll be able to do it. I would love to be in n maybe in the spring time. And, um, and then also what would be beautiful is if we could also maybe have you give a seminar while we’re there a fireside that we could also share. That would be, that would be just beautiful and um take people on the ride if people do want to reach out and invite you to do a fireside. How does that work? Do you travel? Do people pay your travel expenses? Do you just do them locally? I, I, because I think people might want to have some firesides.

[1:37:00] Kimberly: So we used to um we used to drive all over the place so I can’t drive everywhere like I can’t drive in the mountains. So I, I have to have someone help me drive. But um now and we’ve never charged for a fireside. That’s something that was made known to me from the very beginning because this is my testimony as well and I’m, I’m not gonna charge money for something that was freely given to me, but we do have to get there. So we, we do ask for travel expenses and um a place to stay usually with members or uh that way no one’s spending money on a hotel. And so, but yeah, they can. Um my email address is L DS generations at gmail.com and they can just email me if they’re interested. So yeah, that’s

[1:37:46] Michelle: perfect. So maybe we could trade, I can come out to navoo and then we can have you come out here and do a fireside. Yeah, in Utah as well. So or many I, I I’m guessing there might be many. So, um,

[1:37:59] Kimberly: I, we did, we lived in Payson for about three years and we were doing two or three a week for a while, but I’ll be that we’re gonna be back in August. We’ll be back that way for the Joseph Smith Senior family reunion. So I’ll be setting up some people. I wanna be there if you want me. Let me know. Ok.

[1:38:21] Michelle: That’s wonderful. Ok. Well, we’ll have to set some up right now even before I release this. So, so um I can have the first claim um this, OK. Is there anything that we have? I, I could just talk to you forever. I just have to say how much um I have loved and appreciated interacting with you, getting to know you and getting to talk to you. I, I hope that people are able to feel what I’m able to feel of your spirit and the connection and just the pure desire for goodness and unity and doing following where the Lord leads you. It is, it is just a gift to be able to, to interact with you. So, um tell me if there’s anything else that you would like to talk about that we’ve not touched on

[1:39:07] Kimberly: and we haven’t touched chocolate.

[1:39:09] Michelle: OK, let’s talk chocolate. Well, II I will, before we go to chocolate, I will link below your blog and your book and your music. I think it would be really fun. To let people hear that. And um, yeah. So the most important question of chocolate, chocolate, dark or milk or?

[1:39:32] Kimberly: Ok,

[1:39:33] Michelle: I knew we were soul sisters. I just knew it.

[1:39:36] Kimberly: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so the blog is not up to date. I haven’t put anything up there since June, but I will be soon and because my, my schedule is crazy. And um my book Rising Hills and Sinking Valley. So those that and the music’s on my website. But I also have a couple of books I’ve released on Amazon under Kimberly Joe Smith. So you can look me up on there too. There’s some, some books on that one.

[1:40:04] Michelle: I’ll have all the links below and I having a friend help me set up an Amazon affiliate link. So if you are interested and you wouldn’t mind going through those that would help me out a little bit if you’re gonna buy them anyway. But, um, are there any other, um, Emma stories you would like to share on the way out? Well, you told us the book and I’ll have that linked below. I can’t believe I didn’t read Reflections on Emma. She was funny and smart and funky, like you said, like her politician, um, your candidate, um, donuts and I loved the letter that she wrote to Joseph. Was it when he was in Liberty jail?

[1:40:41] Kimberly: Yeah, that’s in my book after where she talks about the rising hills and sinking valleys. Yeah. OK.

[1:40:47] Michelle: Yeah. And, but I love that. She says I give my, give my respect to anyone there that you respect. You know, I mean, you can just send her like her spines and her strength and, and

[1:40:59] Kimberly: she had a, uh, very high soprano voice that is set to and beautiful. She loved to sing and, um, the, the whole family, that’s one thing that I’ve noticed it when in doing genealogy, the genetics of the talents, uh, it has all been in the arts and, and teaching. And so there’s musical arts and, um, just like art in general, but music seems to be really prevalent in, in the family. So she and Joseph love to sing together. Um, their Children all wrote hymns. Uh, some of the hymns that, uh, David Hire Smith and Joseph Smith, the third wrote are still in the community of Christ hymn books. And, um, my grandfather was musical. My dad was in bluegrass music. So it’s just been a kind of a prevalent thing that’s kind of gone down through the lines. I love it. I

[1:41:52] Michelle: love it. Well, you’ve given us so much, um, to consider, I hope people will really, all of us consider what we are trying to bring into this world. And I do think the ultimate way of standing as a witness of Christ or standing for truth is in the way you are talking about through love and charity and peace and understanding as well. As truth. But we truth is better delivered through love than it is through aggress aggression.

[1:42:22] Kimberly: Even if it’s painful truth and something you may not want to hear it. I think it’s better to be transparent and address them honestly. You know. So,

[1:42:33] Michelle: yes. Yes, I think so. Well, Kimberly, I cannot thank you enough for coming on and talking to us. I think you have blessed all of our lives and I’m really, I’m really excited to come out there. So I am going to make that happen and

[1:42:50] Kimberly: it wants to just let me know I’ll, I’ll try my best to be there and um show you around. Perfect. Ok, I’ve loved this. This is great.

[1:42:58] Michelle: Well, thank you. Ok, goodbye. Bye bye. So this is actually a day or two after we initially recorded, I had been um after Kimberly and I initially spoke, I had been feeling really bad that there were some things that I had forgot to say and bring up that I’d wanted to. So I was so happy when at five o’clock this morning, my time I was awake and I got a text from Kimberly asking if we could record again. I was like, yay, I had reached out, we, we were trying to come up with the title for the episode and I had reached out with some suggestions to Kimberly and um and I think, well, you tell you tell from your side what um

[1:43:39] Kimberly: well, I got I got your message and, um, I was like, well, why don’t we, uh, because I think you suggested something at Brigham Young’s name in it.

[1:43:51] Michelle: I suggested Forgiving. Brigham Brigham as a possible title. I was

[1:43:55] Kimberly: like, that’s kind of because there’s been like this effort for, um, between the Smiths and the, the young family associations to, to mend those fences and I didn’t want to reopen, you know, old wounds or anything like that. So, um,

[1:44:12] Michelle: anything that sounded accusing.

[1:44:13] Kimberly: Yeah. And I don’t wanna be because quite honestly I’ve, I’ve seen, I’ve seen the things with it, but I just don’t, like I said, I, my, my focus is on the here and now. Um, and I, like I said, I don’t believe Joseph started play me or practiced it. But at the same time, I don’t have enough information to make a decision, any decisions about Brigham Young on anything. And I, and it’s just like I don’t feel like that’s something I need to spend my time doing. So, um, I, I think I kind of in our last talk. Um, the thing was if, if there were mistakes made, I’ve, I’ve forgiven all that stuff. I put it behind me because that’s what the Lord told me to do. And so I thought, what would a better title be? And while I was thinking about it, this, this, um, memory came up about a letter that had been written from the Young Association to the Smith family, I was like, oh my gosh, instead of when she said, do you have anything else to add? Why did I say chocolate? Why didn’t I think of this letter about with Brigham Young? Because this is like the very core message I was trying to get across and, and the act of the Smith and the young families coming together in a reconciliation moment was, was part of it was a process of what I was talking about. This is what we need to do. We need to reconcile our feelings. And, and so that’s what prompted me to, to, to send you a message and say, hey, can we just do like a little more? And so yeah, that’s how it started.

[1:45:55] Michelle: So thank you. And yeah, you said that you, it almost did it wake you up or keep you up? You just felt kept having, I couldn’t go

[1:46:01] Kimberly: to sleep. And it wasn’t just that there were a few other things. The Lord Lord was like, you know, you need to say this, you need to say this and I had like three, maybe four hours of sleep last night because my head just would not shut up. And so I went into writer mode and think about your historical fiction. You’re working on how do you want this chapter to go? Maybe, maybe I would fall asleep while I was thinking about it, but it was just like bounce right back. To that and it was, it was a rough night. But, ok.

[1:46:32] Michelle: Well, I’m glad we’re doing this again and I’m really excited to hear what you want to share. And then I had some additional things that I had wanted to ask you about as well. So actually, why don’t, do you want to go ahead and go first since we’ve already introduced what you want to talk about? And then,

[1:46:46] Kimberly: ok. Yeah. Um, so I think in 1999 is when I first went to a Smith Joe Smith Junior family uh reunion. And, and so I started going to all of them every year. And in 2007, my cousin Mike Kennedy, who’s the president of the organization, uh was prepping for the, the coming reunion. Like, what kind of things can be, what can be the theme and all that stuff. And he was prompted to um approach the Brigham Young Family Association and ask them to write a letter of apology to the Smith descendants to help ease ill feelings that still existed. Um be in. I spoke about some of those feelings, like some of the things that we were raised on. And, um, so,

[1:47:34] Michelle: so can I ask you like those, those feelings you expressed of just even though you’ve never hated anybody hating Brigham Young, that was more um I like, like, is that kind of all of the Smith descendants tended to feel that way? Now, I, I know, you can’t speak for all of them. But is that, was that a common sentiment that many people share is I kind of wanted you to speak to the pain that

[1:47:58] Kimberly: it is like I said, they call it the P word, you know, and if you said it, I mean, faces changed like drastically and, uh, you know, I, I, in my later years I made comments uh to my aunts and to my dad sometimes, you know, you know, is it wise to hate somebody that way? And even though I felt the same way, but I, I struggled with it and my dad would be like, well, I don’t hate Brigham Young and I was just like, wait a minute because for me, I, I look at language and how we talk to one another and how we treat another language in action. And those things can convey hate without saying hate and the language they were using to me definitely wasn’t coming from love. So if it’s not coming from love is coming from the other place and, but they were angry. I remember my, my grandfather um writing a letter or he’s writing in his journal and he talked about a time when he was growing up in independence and he was in the reorganized church and he was out on the playground with, with other kids and a lot of them were from the reorganized church as well and he got beat up badly. And, uh, and by some of them weren’t members of the church and one of the non-members called him a Mormon. You know, and he, he didn’t like the way it sounded because it, it, it attached to, um, how did he put it? He said he never forgot that day. And how much he hated being called a Mormon for the stain of polygamy that Brigham Young had put upon his family. And that’s, that’s how he wrote it. And he described it as a stain and just his anguish. Yeah, you could, you could tell now my grandpa wasn’t somebody who, who hated people. Um He was somebody who would try to work amongst individuals and, and resolve things, but that was a very distinct um area of pain for him that, that he recorded in his journal. So, yeah, it was, it was pretty, pretty deep, deep set.

[1:50:08] Michelle: And, and so your grandfather, Joseph Smith Junior was his grandfather, right? So, so it hit close to home to have like, like I remember a quote from Emma saying that Brigham had made all of the lies that anyone ever told about her husband. True, like, like, like validated all of those lies. And so you were your descendants feel like, well, like you expressed in the first one, Brigham, they thought killed Joseph stole his church and then accused him, gave him, gave him the bad reputation of polygamy, which he never did. So, uh if I’m understanding correctly. So, ok, that’s, that’s a lot of pain. Yeah.

[1:50:50] Kimberly: Yeah. So, keep in mind I’m expressing things that they felt. Yeah. But you can see where he’s coming from. You can see that this is my grandfather and of course, the things he knew about his grandfather and what a great man he was and the, the, the ma man who he was spiritually and in history and the things that he had done and, and the connection he would have felt to that and he

[1:51:15] Michelle: would have been very close to Emma because Alexander’s Children were always in Emma’s home. So he would have also had, you know, learned about who his grandfather was more from his grandmother as well and, and felt a close bond with her, I would think.

[1:51:30] Kimberly: Yeah. Well, he was born the year after she died.

[1:51:34] Michelle: Oh, ok. So, ok. So he didn’t have

[1:51:36] Kimberly: the connection, but he would have, he would have heard about it, like, more than any of us do through reading. He would have known her through, um, the other grandchildren that knew her well, who all knew her and, and his father and, and his father, his father, my great grandfather was amazing. Uh, he had a saying that said, if you want a good time, take it with you and it’s just something we all live by. That’s why we’re all like, always being silly and, and laughing and having humor. That’s why I have Grover on my, it is we, we want everyone to be happy and have fun. So that’s the kind of sentiment that was, was in that family. But yeah,

[1:52:15] Michelle: why don’t you go ahead and on that funny note, why don’t you show us your mug that you showed me after we finished recording? Do you want to Kimberly was so worried that she’d have a mug and I was like, we can’t read it. But it’s funny.

[1:52:28] Kimberly: Let me just say that. I think that Joseph Smith would be the first person to laugh at this. So, so yes, um you have to, you have to know how to laugh about things. So I was on ebay every now and then I look on ebay to see if people have outdated uh unint print books that are out of print about Joseph or about the, the history. And then I found this colonial style uh beer mug that says, y I said Joseph Smith, ye old stone beer brewery. And I was like, isn’t that fun? And it’s a, it’s located in Sheffield, England. So, no, not our Joseph Smith. But there was a man named Joseph Smith that had a beer brewery. So whenever people come over and they see that sitting on my desk, it’s like a topic of conversation.

[1:53:19] Michelle: That’s so funny. And actually, Brigham out here did have a distillery and I believe a brewery and a winery. He settled um Southern Utah. So that they could create their own wine and grow their own cotton. So it’s fun to know the history. OK. Thanks for showing us that.

[1:53:35] Kimberly: So, so anyway,

[1:53:36] Michelle: continue. Yeah.

[1:53:38] Kimberly: So yeah, he, my cousin Mike proposed uh about this letter and they um he was invited to bring it up at the, on the forthcoming Brigham Young Association board meeting. And when he did the question came up, well, why do we need to write a letter of an apology? And, and it’s then that, you know, Brigham, uh uh Mike and my cousin Gracia were just like they, you know, they have no idea. And there, here came the discussions of the way the descendants had been taught about Brigham Young and the way those, those teachings manifested and grew from one generation to the next uh into these narratives and uh they were dumbfounded, they had no idea. And it’s, it’s interesting, go

[1:54:29] Michelle: ahead. So I just want to make sure I understand. So, Mike, your cousin felt like if, if the Brigham Young Association will issue a letter of apology that can help my family start to heal. Was his hope if I’m understanding correctly? And then the Brigham Young Association was like, what are you talking about? What did Brigham do that? Would that that was wrong? Am I understanding that correctly?

[1:54:52] Kimberly: Yeah. Yeah. And so it was uh Mary Ellen Elg Gran who was a descendant of Brigham Young was approached with this task. So she did a lot of research and she found out, um, you know, kind of the history of the things that we had been told and what we grew up believing and, and from that understood why we felt, uh, the way that we did. And, um, you know, it’s just like we’ve had to come to an understanding of why they feel or, or felt, or some still feel about Emma the way that they do. And it’s been this ongoing effort to try to put out there who Emma really was, you know, and to clarify some of these things. And so it, it was happening on both sides of the fence and she was just uh blown away by the whole thing. And what wound up happening is, um, she wrote a letter after praying for a long, long time days, uh about how to do this because she understood the weight of responsibility and how it needed to be done carefully. And it became

[1:55:58] Michelle: a responsibility to both sides. Like

[1:56:03] Kimberly: this is like the, the epitome of what Christ is saying is when he says lay, lay your difference aside and come together, you know, these are the kind of things that have to happen regardless of what’s happened in the past that needs to be put behind and processed. It’s got to be processed, but find a way to process that, put it behind you and, and come together because that’s the only way we can be a united people under Christ. And so that’s part of this is part of that happening. And it’s actually addressed in the um dedicatory prayer of uh the Kirtland Temple by Joseph. And I’ll, I’ll share that with you in a minute. But um the uh she, she winds up writing a letter of reconciliation instead of apology and go ahead, I think he was trying to say so I just,

[1:56:49] Michelle: I just love this story. I love everybody involved like props to, I just feel God’s hand working with people. You know, Mike having this responsibility. He wasn’t saying you have to apologize. He was saying what could help us, what could help my cousins heal. Oh, this could like he had the best of intentions and then Mary Ellen instead of just getting offended or saying how dare you say, you know, was willing to dive in with a humble heart and really understand the pain. And I, I mean, I just, I this is a beautiful story of God working through the hearts of beautiful people. I love

[1:57:26] Kimberly: this story. I, I think, you know, uh the people of the Brigham Young Association, I think they felt really crushed that this had been going on for so long and they, they had no idea and, and Mike, Mike is amazing. He, that was a huge responsibility and, and on, on and his in his heart, he, he knew he needed to try and make this happen because it had just been going on for so long. And I could, I, I could offer my side of things because I said on this side of the fence of, of the line of Smith through my dad, my grandpa’s side and the Missouri descendants are the hardest to reach that. They have the thickest tallest wall. And uh so I was speaking back and forth with my cousin Gracia after I was baptized about how I was raised and everything like that. So they had an understanding of just how hard it was gonna be. We had people who would not go to these reunions and uh specifically because they were in Utah and they were being um organized by members of the church. And he was just trying to find a way to say, hey, we’re not trying to get you to join our church. We want you to come together as a family, come and know your cousins come and come and realize we don’t have horns and all these communities you’ve heard about us just come. And um they made that happen in 2005. Uh and a lot of hiring descendants provided the income for those who couldn’t afford to come and provided housing. If they would just commit to come, they would pay their whole way and, and take care of them. So we had a lot of

[1:59:08] Michelle: non-members Hiram descendants, Joseph, like the Mormon Joseph Smith. And

[1:59:15] Kimberly: yeah, and it was just great. So now there are several, several descendants who come to the reunions all the time. And uh they, they don’t have this expectation of being bombarded with a pressure of joining the church or anything like that. But they’ve come together as a family. And um I just have to tell you really quick that 2005 reunion, my mom and sister were both there and they, they weren’t members at the time and there were several other non-members with us. And this is when the youth was doing the 200 celebration of, was it Joseph’s birthday? I think it was remember when the youth was doing all the things and there was that big event that happened, I think in the Marriott Center and only the youth were invited except for the youth leaders and, and special guests. Well, we got invited and this Marriott Center uh center holds thousands of people and we’re sitting up in these um ble bleachers and or seats and um before it got started, they just wanted to introduce uh well, they announced that there were descendants of Joseph and Emma Smith in the audience and they wanted to stand up and have us be recognized and I wanna cry because I always do what I tell us. Uh And so we stood up and then everyone else started applauding and it started like this applaud and then it just grew into this roar and I was just in tears because I was still new to the whole magnitude of who he was and what he did. And um I still had it fresh in my mind that we were hated in Utah. And it, you know, I had no idea there was that much love for my second great grandfather. And it just, it was this roar that just resonated and all of us were crying. It was just, it was amazing. And I think that was so good for the other non-member descendants to experience because it took down some of those barriers. And so that’s this letter for this next reunion was like the next step of trying to, to bridge that gap. So that,

[2:01:16] Michelle: that is a beautiful story. And I like, I guess I relate a little more to the Brigham Young Association. I mean, the Brigham Young descendants where it’s like, why, why do you hate us? What like, like we would be, we would, you know, having grown up in Utah, I would have had no idea that Joseph Smith’s descendants felt like we hated them and felt this hatred to, you know, like, like we are just ignorant. And so, but that doesn’t mean that we’re um II I was gonna say innocent. It’s not, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have any responsibility. You know what I mean? I think that this like learning, oh this is why it’s kind of that idea of like privilege. Like when you have privilege. You don’t have to be aware of someone else’s pain, you know. And so it is important for us to see, like, go, 00, I see that. I, I, like, I wanna say, I’m so sorry, but I guess she Mary Ellen didn’t feel like she could say that. So she did it a different way. So, yes, go ahead and share it with

[2:02:12] Kimberly: us. Well, you know, it’s, it’s interesting that um I, I have people that come up to me after firesides that um had ancestors that were members of the mob and they’re, they’re just in tears and they come up and they apologize. They, they apologize for their ancestors and I’m like, I always say to them, you don’t have to apologize to me. I said this had nothing to do with you. And they’re like, I know, I know, but I just, they’re just so torn apart that their ancestor was part of the mob. And I said, you know, um your ancestors probably reacted to the society of their day and to false beliefs that they, they had been brought up with or, or taught against and they, they had a fear of this man and that’s the way they reacted and they’re on the other side now and they’ve been forgiven for it and they reconciled it. I said they’re OK. They’re all OK. They’re all OK. And uh it breaks my heart when, when people come up to me and, and, and they’re in such agony over it and I, I just wish people would understand you, the people who are on the other side that lived in those times. I think their hearts are breaking because they see us so divided over these things that we didn’t live. They did this, this was their experience and, and they just want the hearts to mend. They just want us all to be united. But I, and with that uh yeah, I’m gonna read this letter. I love it. Um The way it’s worded is beautiful. So this is from the Brigham Young Family Association, June 9th, 2007 for a century and a half. We have grieved over the loss of the fellowship of our dear Emma hails Smith, her Children and her descendants. We feel in our hearts an abiding longing to join. Once again, these two families in the common celebration of their ancestors, two men who loved each other and gave their lives together in the service of the Lord Jesus Christ, the prophet Joseph Smith, who stands at the head of this dispensation is second only in our affections to the Lord himself. And we hold in the highest esteem, our progenitor Brigham Young, whose dying words in this world were with the repeated name of his greatest friend and mentor Joseph. If there are any misunderstandings that continue to exist in the lexicon of traditions in our family, concerning the prophet’s beloved wife, whom we revere as a truly great and saintly lady, we would commit ourselves to do whatever is needed to publish to the world. Our deep regard for her noble life, it would be our earnest desire to rebuild that bridge of friendship between our two families that existed not so long ago. So then it is signed by all the board members

[2:04:59] Michelle: that is beautiful and the letter that the article you sent me about it said that she like it was all inspired. Those were not the

[2:05:10] Kimberly: words. Yeah. And so I, I talked about the Kirtland dedicatory prayer and uh DNC 109 68 says, oh Lord, remember thy servant Joseph Smith junior and all his afflictions and persecutions, how he is covenant with Jo Jehovah and vowed to the Almighty God of Jacob and the com commandments which thou has given him and that he hath sincerely striven to do thy will have mercy. Oh Lord upon his wife and Children that they may be exalted in thy presence and preserved by thy fostering hand, have mercy upon all of their immediate connections that their prejudices might be broken up and swept away as with a flood and that they may be converted and redeemed with Israel and know that they are a God. So 70 talks about all their immediate connections and I I looked that up and it’s family and um it’s talking about the prejudices being broken up and swept away as a flood and that letter of reconciliation um to us as a family is one of the answers of that prayer. And ever since then there’s been this movement to try to get rid of the prejudices that have been passed down. Um So, yeah,

[2:06:28] Michelle: that, that is beautiful. That, and I, I, oh, I have so many thoughts. One is, I know that some people might feel like it doesn’t go far enough because it, you know, but understanding that there are people in the Joseph in the Brigham Young Association who still have these negative feelings toward Emma. And they are like, like she was walking this tight rope or the Lord through her was trying to make it something that could be accepted on both sides and it would start this healing I want. And I also, I’m just amazed how the Lord in the current dedicatory prayer knew what was going to happen, of course, and was speaking to it already was already, you know, like that, that statement seems to have more impact today even than it had in Joseph’s own day.

[2:07:15] Kimberly: Yeah, it, it does. And um I, I believe that there are many of us that have been sitting here to try to help in, in that effort. Um I, I know I have that close knit connection with Joseph and I IFI feel when I hear things that are going on and uh causing discord. I’ve got that natural feeling of wanting to go in and help. But, you know, from my mother’s line as well. Uh, she had the pure love of Christ, like no one I, I knew and I had, I had that in me. I just, I just want everyone to get along and I, I want, want to, everybody to be in the same company with Christ. You know, when, when he comes and when we go to the other side, I want us all to be together and be happy, happy and have that fullness of joy. And we can’t, we can’t accomplish that when there’s this division and, and discord going on. And that, that kind of leads me to think. It’s John 20 in the, in the Bible where it says whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister as a liar. And I love that because it’s, it’s pretty plain, it’s pretty plain plain language. And, you know, we might have people that say, well, we don’t hate Brigham Young and they may not think they hate Brigham Young. But like I said before, we’re measured on our words and action by God to one another. And if we’re saying things, I’ve, I’ve seen some pretty strong language in some of these posts like calling him a son of tradition and, and just, just this really, really ugly stuff. And if you’re putting stuff out there that’s gonna prompt others to have bad feelings to someone else that that’s a problem. So, like I said, I, I don’t have a problem with people researching. I, I love that. I love researching and, and looking into the mysteries that, that aren’t completely solved and 100% out there. Um, but there again, we have to be careful of the language that we use when we bumped into trouble when we bump into troubling things and, and how we, how we’re putting things out there because we’re forming the thoughts in people’s minds about other people. And now we have to be careful with that.

[2:09:27] Michelle: OK. That is so beautiful. I, so I think we talked about this a little bit in our previous conversation, but I do still want to ask you again, the fine line, the tight rope white, right? Because on the one hand, one thing that I um that I don’t like is when we kind of whitewash history or minimize or say, don’t talk about that because it might reflect badly. Like I really care about digging out the truth. And so this fine line between um you know, because some people might hear what you’re saying as like, don’t, don’t talk about those things and I don’t think that’s what you’re saying. Like, like just again, just don’t be accusing and angry

[2:10:09] Kimberly: condemning,

[2:10:11] Michelle: condemning.

[2:10:13] Kimberly: You talk about the tight rope. It used to be like when I was young in the church, people would say people, members of the church would say, don’t even look at it. Don’t even go there. Don’t, don’t even look at it and I understand that, but there’s also danger in it and there’s, there has to be a balance in everything that we do, including this and, and now it isn’t as easy as saying, don’t go there. Don’t look at that because social media with social media the way it is now, even if you try to avoid thing, it’s gonna get thrown in your face, it’s gonna get thrown, you’re gonna be exposed to it somehow. So you need to know how to handle it. And so for me, the, the way I handled it was, you know, I talked about my spiritual side, my historian side. Well, whenever my historian side was like, I gotta know, I wanna know what this is about. I made sure I took the spiritual side with me and I, I always prayed about it and I always, you know, whenever I’d read something and it, I could tell it was someone else’s perspective. You know, I would just read and go, OK, you know, um and I would just be careful not to, like I said, you have to process the things, but you also has to have to, that process has, has to be an effort in trying to put it behind you and saying, well, you know, there were a lot of times when I said I’ve, I’ve read the actions of some of the peoples of the past. And I said, well, that was unfortunate that they said this, this way and caused this problem and, and, um, and I just kind of prayed about it and, and, and for, you know, I was forgiving, if it bothered me, I was just forgiving about it and then said, you know, they know better now they’re on the other side and, um, I’m doing myself more harm if I’m dredging it up and using it to cause some kind of movement against this person. So that’s passed. Yeah, whichever person we’re talking about, you know, because there’s several individuals that discussed a lot and, and,

[2:12:16] Michelle: and that’s so it’s so important to put ourselves in their shoes. Like even, um, Jordan Peterson talks about like the perpetrators of the holocaust, right? And instead of reading history and thinking those evil people, how is that? You know, it’s better to put ourselves in those, their shoes so we can understand how people did those things, right. That’s how it’s useful to us. And then also when you said something about, oh, it’s unfortunate that they said that that way and caused that problem where they did. You know, I’m like, I can think that of myself so often. Oh, I wish I hadn’t said that that way and caused that problem. And so the compassion like it is good to go. Ok, let me put myself, I’m not going to say it’s OK what they did. I’m not going to whitewash it, but I am going to try to see how they got there so I can learn valuable lessons from it and because we can like truth and love like we talked about always have to go together, right? And so it’s like, like those and, and sometimes it’s a challenge to blend them. But I think that’s what God does and what we’re called to do you.

[2:13:20] Kimberly: And let me give you an example of, of how some of those things when I was doing research, how I saw some of these, you know, when we’re sitting here looking at all this from our point of view, we’re able to, we’re able to see, oh man, if they just wouldn’t have done that, oh, why didn’t they just do this? And my great grandfather Alexander Hells Smith went um on one of the wagons out west in 1860 incognito. Nobody knew. Uh at first that he was a son of Joseph. Um And he was able to observe a lot that shocked him. Uh One of which was, I don’t want to say it was all bad. It was an amazing journey and he wrote, he wrote the whole thing down. It’s quite an amazing read, but he talks about the level of um adultery that’s going on in the camps and stuff like that. He made mentioned it mentioned it to one of uh one of the men there and he said, oh, it doesn’t matter. Uh, once we get to Utah, we’ll get rebaptized anyway. And he was horrified by this. And of course, his thought process is, you know, it goes straight to bring him Young that Brigham Young, how could he allow this to happen? Da da, da, da, da. So this gets piled on Brigham Young’s shoulder and he’s not even there. But I’m looking at em going, wait a minute, wait a minute. I know European history and many of these people were convents, converts Catholics. How do you know? I, and I’m not downing the Catholic church but I had a, I’ve had a lot of friends who were friends of, you know, friends of mine who were members of that church in high school and I would always hear the same thing. It doesn’t matter what we do on the weekend, we’ll, we’ll go to confession. That was the thought process. So those, these were the kind of people that was on this wagon train. It was that same thought process. It doesn’t matter. We’re going to get re baptized when we get there. Well, that’s, that’s how they thought, you know, so to

[2:15:21] Michelle: me passed down from the, like paying the indulgences and that mindset. Yeah, it can be forgiven so I can do it.

[2:15:30] Kimberly: But it kind of, you know, a lot of my family knew about this manuscript that uh in his journals that, that Alexander wrote. So, so, but the buzz was that Brigham allowed those things to happen and, and I read it with an open mind and with my knowledge of, of European history and of, of histories of religions and things like that, I was like, no, that’s not what’s going on. These are, these are a lot of, these are church of England are, are Catholic people who not been in the States very long. And this is, that’s part of the way. So do you see how things can be, things can be twisted like that? And that’s why I said you have to be careful. We don’t always have all the information. I just found out yesterday that the books, The Kingdom of Navoo and Rough Stone and Rolling are going to have to be rewritten because there’s been new information come out um from the community of Christ that they’ve discovered that proves that we have a misperception of how uh Nabu was first settled and it’s such a huge shift that they’re going to have to go back and rewrite parts of their books because because of this and I haven’t seen that podcast yet because it’s just fresh. It was just like a trailer type thing and that he was going to be interviewing the people from the community of Christ about it. So there again, it told me we don’t have all the information that could absolutely go this way or that way. And there again, that’s why we have to be really careful. But I,

[2:17:04] Michelle: OK. I, so I have to ask, where did he write that? Where could we get that book? Um,

[2:17:10] Kimberly: um, it was compiled by his daughter. It’s, it’s, it’s so amazing. Um I think if you type in biography of Alexander Hail Smith, you can order it online through the community of Christ bookstore.

[2:17:24] Michelle: Ok. Ok. That’s, that’s really fun to hear. So, um, ok. So is there anything else you wanna share on that topic of reconciliation? And um you, yeah, I mean, this is a gorgeous story of reconciliation. It’s really beautiful. It’s reminds me a little bit of what is trying to be done with the victims, the families of the Mountain Meadows massacre, right? Like they, we’re trying to um make things right to bring, bring peace and unity, which I think is a beautiful thing. I do, I do think that’s what our ancestors are wanting like on both sides. God, our ultimate ancestor. That is definitely what God is wanting. Resentment doesn’t serve any of us or neither does defensiveness, right? A refusal to apologize. And

[2:18:13] Kimberly: a yeah, I, I think it must be like sitting in a movie theater on the other side and watching all watching this movie. And so you, have you ever been in a movie? And you’re just sitting in the theater going no, don’t do that. Why did you do that? I, I have to think they must, must be over there thinking that sometimes and it’s, and they know what’s coming, they know what’s coming for us. And I, I’m the same way. I don’t know what’s coming, but I’m aware, I think 2024 is gonna be bringing a lot of things our way and we need to be so spiritually prepared for that and, um, and not so divided on, you know, when you look at issues that people have with Brigham Young or with Emma, when it, when it comes to what is coming up in our future, none of that really, really matters in the scheme of things. It, it doesn’t, we, we need to find a way to just forgive those feelings and just let them go because we need to be prepared for what’s coming and we need to have our hearts united. We, we, we’re not gonna be able to stand up to what’s coming our way if, if we’re so split apart in so many ways. Um

[2:19:24] Michelle: the division, the division does not serve us well,

[2:19:27] Kimberly: the division impacts our spirit and anything that impacts our spirit is going to lessen the strength that it gives us. And, and so that’s, that’s why I’m such a, such an advocate of people for, for them to, to, you know, while they’re, while they’re researching these truths, they feel like they like they need to just do it in a balanced spiritual way. So that’s not turning into a, a vendetta or an agenda of, of starting up a movement against somebody because, because, yeah, it’s, it’s all in the scriptures, how we’re supposed to treat one another. It’s, it’s, it’s there, you know,

[2:20:08] Michelle: and, and I just, I just have to once again speak to, um, disagreeing is not division, having different perspectives is not the same thing as division or it’s not, it’s not like either we have contention or we all agree. That’s not, that’s not it at all. God intentionally made us all different. We all have different perspectives. We all have different information. Most divisions grow out of misunderstandings, right? And I, I think being able to talk to someone with whom we disagree is a beautiful thing. The goal shouldn’t like, like the Smith family descendants, being willing to come out as soon as you know, I mean, I, I’m, I love that my people are willing to just love them and embrace them instead of trying to baptize them and thinking that’s the only reason to engage with them. You know what I mean? Like we don’t have to make people agree with us in order to be united with them in beautiful ways. And I,

[2:21:01] Kimberly: I want that message. Yeah, I think that if we find ways to come together in love, then the Lord takes over from there. You know, he, he converts people’s hearts, you know, we, we don’t, we, I think our examples to people is what helps um like if you have a fullness of joy, no matter what faith you’re in. Uh, and, and you live that to an extent. I think people are drawn to that fullness of joy and they want to know, hey, where did you get that? And, um, we, we have had several descendants join a after going, um, going to the reunions and then we’ve had some that are, are just happy in their own faith. And I’m, I’m someone of, if, hey, if you’re where the spirit has led you, that’s where you belong right now. And, and we all need to respect that and just get along. It’s, we’re all gonna be coming under the Lord together uh under him under one umbrella. So our, our challenge is to, to get along, love one another and treat each other, right? That’s, that’s our second commandment. We’ve got master.

[2:22:09] Michelle: That’s so beautiful. I love it. OK? So, um I have a couple of things now that I had wanted to ask you about if that’s all right. And um so on this topic of being able, like your message of unity is exquisite and so important. And yet you joined the church, believing, well, believing several things, believing that polygamy was wrong. It was the P word, right? Like extremely wrong and believing that your ancestors that Joseph and Emma were not polygamists, that Joseph was not a polygamist. And it sounds to me like you have never budged on that, like, like you still believe that you, I, I kind of wanted to know a part of what you wrote in your message. That was beautiful is why you believe that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist. I would love it if you would kind of spell out your pa your pathway in that belief. Yeah. You know, and then it, how did you come to that belief? Why do you hold that belief? How do you articulate it?

[2:23:11] Kimberly: Why, why I don’t think he did practice it? Mhm OK. Um It’s just something I don’t know if I mentioned um about, about the connection I feel in my heart to him. Mhm In, in our talk before in the other zoom. But um there, there is a, a connection that ancestors share. Um and it, it is a very, it’s been scientifically proven that uh experiences and emotions are carried down through the DNA and uh you might be drawn to specific ancestors and, and then some, you may not be, you know, you just feel like you connect with, with certain ones and I, I’ve always felt like I connected with both Joseph and Emma but in a very strong manner, Joseph. So it, it was kind of like any time I heard certain comments. Um It would just i in my heart, it was just like, that’s not quite right. That’s not quite right.

[2:24:16] Michelle: And I, I never knew you had a deep deep, just a genetic and spiritual knowing to start with

[2:24:24] Kimberly: it. Just didn’t feel right and, you know, years down the road sometime, maybe someone will have something that proves 100% I’m wrong and, and if that’s so I’m just gonna go, oh OK. So I was wrong, it’s not gonna cause me to be angry or anything like that. But that is, that is how I, I’ve always felt. Um, and then there’s, you know, in later years there were certain things like the, the DNA study that was done.

[2:24:53] Michelle: Yeah. And right before we get to that, because I do want to really focus on that. But you also said like Joseph’s words like the 1835 doctrine and covenant section 101, I like, like that. You, you believe Joseph to be truthful, right? And so all of his actions and words ring true

[2:25:11] Kimberly: to you. Are you talking about the 1840 3d NC? Uh huh. The addition uh with the definition of marriage was one man, only one man and one woman. Uh and it didn’t clarify or say that there was any other options there. That was, that was the definition of marriage was right there. And that came out in 1843. And I was like, well then, you know what changed?

[2:25:37] Michelle: It was 1835 I think that was the 1835 and then reprinted in 1844 at least that’s, that’s my understanding. But, but anyway, in any case, we’re talking about the same

[2:25:47] Kimberly: it’s the same one I saw was, it was the 1843 edition. So, um, ok. And then it was, it was, it was his own newspaper that he had printed as editor that he published that he denied practicing pulling me. And I was like, well, it’s his own newspaper. You know, he’s the editor of it and he had it put in there. Well, there were, there were just those things that kind of bolstered the way I felt already. Um, but it, but it didn’t, it didn’t make me want to go out and try and figure out, well, what happened? Because here’s, here’s, here’s another thing. Here’s, here’s something I experienced. Um My, my dad was used for the study of uh the DNA that was done on Josephine Lyons. Uh because I think it was her mom that told her that she was uh Joseph’s daughter. It was really hard to do that DNA because it was mitochondrial. So it was hard to prove because of mitochondrial DNA. But if they had it

[2:26:57] Michelle: was, it was a female descendant, that’s what they needed new technology.

[2:27:02] Kimberly: They were able to like they needed male descendants, straight line, male descendants from Joseph. And my dad was a great grandson is he’s still alive. Great grandson of Joseph. Uh male to male is just three generations down. So, with that, they were able to, to build a better um DNA uh copy of, of, if I remember reading. Right. They, they were able to completely, uh, get Joseph’s DNA and, and construct it where they could do these. I’m probably not wording this. Right. But do this study and they were able to prove that she wasn’t and, and I was like, ok, so did her mother lie. And as soon as I said, as soon as I, I put that out of my mouth, the spirit is like, no, because her Children were sealed to him. So she considered them to be his Children. They were adopted in that way. I was like, oh, ok, I get that. I understand that.

[2:28:02] Michelle: Ok. That was your understanding. OK.

[2:28:04] Kimberly: That was my understanding it like, yeah, I was like, well, maybe that’s, that’s all the other ones. That’s, that’s why they said well, because, because the women consider them to be Joseph’s child. Now it wasn’t um abnormal for them to say you’re, you’re his child. You know how many parents have adopted kids? Say no, you’re not his child because you’re adopted. You know, it’s, it’s natural to say no. Yeah, you’re his child. And so that’s the way I began to look at it.

[2:28:34] Michelle: Ok. OK. I love so. Ok. Yeah. So I just found, and I’ll be doing a um episode on the affidavits at some point. But Sylvia actually never claimed to have been married to Joseph that I’ve been able to find she didn’t, there’s an affidavit filled out for her and she never appeared and never signed it. So the, the only claim we have of Sylvia is Josephine and I think it was 1913 filled out an affidavit saying that her mother told her that she was Joseph’s child. So it’s, it, it could be so many degrees of we, we don’t have Sylvia’s own words, I guess is what I’m saying. All we have is Josephines many decades later. Understanding in this comp, right? So there are so many ways that this could have been that this could have happened. But the important thing is that we know that Joseph didn’t have like Joseph doesn’t have Children with anybody but Emma and that everything keeps pointing that direction. I do want to know. Um So, so when was your father first approached about DNA? Because they did rule out many descendants. But Josephine Lyon was the last best hope. Many polygamy researchers were certain that she was Joseph’s child. I think it came as a shock to a lot of people. But, but they’d already ruled out everybody else. I want to know how your father was approached, how he felt about it because he would have had all those hard feelings toward the church toward Brigham Young.

[2:30:05] Kimberly: I’m afraid I was the culprit to

[2:30:10] Michelle: give us the

[2:30:10] Kimberly: scoop. OK. Yeah, they’re um they really needed dad or another great grandson that had that close uh male to male connection. And dad, I kept asking him if he wanted to be involved in the DNA thing and, and years went by and he’s like, no, no, no. And then here came the lions case. And I was like, OK, so I talked to dad and I said, hey, dad, there’s this case and I was telling you about it and I said, here’s your chance to prove Joseph didn’t pra practice polygamy. He said, OK, I’ll do it. So OK,

[2:30:46] Michelle: that’s amazing. And then again, that’s what you said. But, but this is what I’m feeling like um Kimberly, like you, most of us that are members of the church had no clue that that was, that that was going on really, you know, it wasn’t. But you because of your unique position, having joined the church being a researcher, being so involved in history and in these questions and studying them were in the position to approach your father and in the way that was. But I guess what I’m thinking is you said they needed that close DNA, a direct line grandson. And if your father passed away, we might miss the chance to ever prove to ever answer these questions, you know, solidly, at least for generations until other technology comes about. But I’m just seeing God’s hand in this massively the way God used you to help all of this be answered. Like your father is the reason or at least a big part of the reason that we know that Joseph E lion is not Joseph’s descendant and, or daughter and that Joseph didn’t have Children with anyone other than Emma. That’s huge.

[2:32:02] Kimberly: Right. You know, um, the Lord also has given me a balanced view of everything. So it might surprise you. But I want to give a plug in for polygamy about something. And this could be, this could be maybe it wasn’t supposed to happen, but since it did the Lord did something with it or maybe it was supposed to happen and this is what happened as a result. But either way as a church, we would not have been able to grow our missionary force and reach the four corners of the earth as fast as we did as fast as we needed to for the times if that hadn’t happened. And that’s what I like to look at it. It’s like everything with the past with me. There’s so, so many things I’ve seen that to me are horrible, but I, I process those and get rid of it. And then I look at the good that happened as a result and I try to magnify on the good and carry that forward and add it to what I’m doing while I’m here. And so for me, I, I don’t have a problem with the fact that polygamy happened because look what happened as a result. We have, we did reach the four currents of the earth we did. And in, in time for these times that we’re at that happened. And um I don’t know that other church has been able to do that. So,

[2:33:22] Michelle: so, uh so I’m gonna push back on you a little bit because I’ve thought about this a lot. If you don’t mind, we can, we can demonstrate how we can have unity while we have a slight disagreement. Right? I, because I feel like, well, we know that actually the birth rates weren’t higher because of polygamy, because polygamous wives have fewer Children. And there were many men who couldn’t find wives. But I do think. Um so I like, I compare it to um when one of my leaders said, can you point out the good that came from polygamy? I’m like, well, yeah, just like we could point out the good that came from communism or the good that came from slavery. Like God always can, you know, like, like many of all of us, I’m certain to have somewhere in our ancestry rape. That doesn’t mean that since we came from rape, that rape is good or OK. Do you know what I’m saying? Like, and so, so the way I look at it is uh well, how I’ve started to process it as I’ve encountered people from different branches of the restoration and d and, and seeing this unity come back and like God planted seeds everywhere and God uses everyone. So Brigham bringing the saints um West and establishing the, the church out here and being such a force of nature was very much in service to God. Like I think that that preserved this, this religion when so many others kind of faded away or got just blended into the the culture, you know, and also um Salt Lake being here was instrumental in and um we got here in 47 and the 49 ers going to California and Utah was a big waste station for them, right? And that so so I can see how God used all of it. But for me, I don’t look at that as good fruits of polygamy because I don’t think bad roots bring forth good fruits necessarily. I can see that God. God works through all of it, right? God can bring beauty through all of it. So, so for me, I don’t want to give polygamy credit for that. I want to say God worked through, through people despite polygamy, polygamy didn’t didn’t ruin like we like I say to people in our church, you know, so many people feel like, well, if that happened, you know we had this black and white view. If that happened, then the church isn’t true and I have to leave or people in the church challenge me and say so you’re saying that Brigham Young got this wrong. Then how can you, you know, how can you claim to be a member of the church or you know like like it has to be all or nothing either Brigham Young did everything right. And therefore every church leader did everything right? Or the church is somehow invalid anyway. So, so that’s how I look at it. I can see God working but I’m I’m very slow to say, oh, thank heaven for polygamy. So that we, you know, because I, I think, I think that God cares about people being treated badly. I think God cares about donors being, you know, like Jacob 231 through the end. I don’t think God would say I want, I want this to happen for these ends, you know. So anyway, but I do appreciate your perspective and I do appreciate that God. One thing that, that I say is God used Joseph Smith through um for the gifts that Joseph had as a revelator, as a people person, gathering people bringing um a seer, bringing forth the book of Mormon, bringing forth revelation, bringing forth beautiful doctrine. But Joseph was not blessed and did not have really a business mind, right? He didn’t succeed in the Kirtland Safety Society or the steamboat or the store or the like, but God still could use him. And, and then I think Brigham Young was this force force of nature to bring the people West and God could use him that way. But I think just like Joseph didn’t really succeed in business, Brigham did not succeed in doctrine and every doctrinal innovation that Brigham brought forward or taught, uh we have very thankfully discarded and usually condemned. Right. And so that’s how I look at it, but I, I spoke for a little while so, go ahead and

[2:37:28] Kimberly: respond. No, I guess, I guess my only response is re regardless of what happened. Um It, it happened the way it happened. And I, I think when you’re looking at it in this game of, of God and how he watches us, these, these were all experiences that we’ve had to go through and our ancestors had to go through and there were also tests for all of us. It’s, it’s everything we go through is a test on how, how do we handle this? How do we process this? You know, how, how are we, how are we going to be towards one another concerning this? Um We’re gonna divide up and, and, and fight like they have in the Middle East for thousands of years over stuff happened thousands of years ago or are we gonna come, come to terms with it and come to peace with it and for some, coming to terms with it and coming to peace with it is they need to know every little thing that happened, you know, and that’s why I say I don’t have a problem with people doing that if they feel like they need to know, I don’t have a problem with that at all. It, it boils down to, again, to how are you gonna use that? And can you use it to as a healing process rather than a dividing process? And, um, you know, what, what is it gonna be the result from that? Because that’s, we have to, we have to process all these things in the here and now and today and, um, like I said, to prepare for what’s coming. And so, so for me, that’s why people get so floored when I, I say it really doesn’t matter to me to know these things. Um, because these, these are really heavy things and we have a lot of heavy things we’re given by the Lord. So I pick and choose which heavy thing I wanna carry and that just isn’t one of them. And so I have my opinions like I tell you sometimes and, and then you, you can, uh, like you said, you can push back and uh, that’s fine. I love pushbacks. Pushbacks are something we can learn from. So you gave me a perspective I really hadn’t thought about before and, and that’s good. That’s a good thing. This is us agreeing to disagree, agreeably, or I might agree with some of the things that you say. The important thing is we’re, we can talk about it and I will go on with my day without having any feelings of how dare she say that, right? How I will have no feelings of offense at all because we’re talking about history and times and we’re talking about relationships and the spirit we’re talking about how do we handle these things? What, what do we do with this? We’re, we’re trying to reason this out, that’s what we’re trying to do. And we’re trying to help other people reason these things out in a balanced way so that they can maintain their testimonies yet understand their past and, and come to terms with it. We’re, we’re trying to get them to see that those people on the other side who live this are broken hearted watching all this happen and, and that we just, you know, people just need to find a way to, to, to get that balanced way of trying to process this. And, and so that’s the beauty of what you and I are doing today and the kind of friendship that we, we have, albeit a new friendship, it’s friendship. And um and this is how I feel like the Lord wants us, wants us to be, it’s ok to communicate about things that are sensitive amongst a lot of people. It’s ok to communicate about these things. It’s just how we do it, how we talk to one another, how we think about one another. Uh Even our very thoughts are measured by God. So we need to go back to the scriptures and read again and study again how we are supposed to treat one another even in difficult times. You know, what are we supposed to do with that? You know, use the, the Lord as a guidance counselor for that and um measure everything that you’re, you’re gonna say before it comes out of your mouth and ask yourself, is this going to cause hurt and pain or a problem to somebody? Like calling somebody a son of perdition that’s strong. Uh regardless of how bad you might think of a, of a person that they’ve done something that’s not your call to make you’re not their judge. So saying, saying, man, I really don’t like what he did like that was so beyond wrong. What this person did that, that’s OK. But calling them evil and a son of perdition, you’re making yourself a judge over that person. So it’s just we just have to be careful, such good

[2:42:35] Michelle: guidance. I love that you keep talking about our ancestors and I just had the thought like I really don’t think our ancestors in, you know, on the other side are going. Yes, go get them, get me with that now. No. You know what I mean? Like

[2:42:50] Kimberly: no, like those movie theater going 00 oh, that was yours. Your descendant, not mine. Right.

[2:43:01] Michelle: Right. And so one last thing because I know um oh, it can be so challenging. I love your guidance and I’m and I’m recommitted to trying even, I mean, I’m certain that I, this is what you’re talking about is what it is in my heart, what I want to do. But I’m certain that if I went back and look over everything I’ve said there would be things that I’m like, oh, I could have done that better, you know. So I, me too,

[2:43:25] Kimberly: me too. Yeah.

[2:43:26] Michelle: Right. But, but the challenge can be, um, well, I just am thinking of blessed. Are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. And I just, this week was reading people saying things that I’ve said that I have never like, like some like people who are so, you know, I think that they think Brigham Young is that they’re going, yeah, go get her, get her, you know, and, and saying all of these things to people that are just not true. I, I always, I like, hey, just reach out to me. I’m happy to tell you my perspective. You don’t have to hear it from what someone claims what someone says about me dishonestly and then go repeat that, you know, you know, people keep repeating things. And so that’s

[2:44:15] Kimberly: how I got to vote in the same first place. That’s how we got where we are right now because somebody said something, put a spin on it and generations later you’ve got all this stuff. Yeah.

[2:44:26] Michelle: Right. Exactly. And so, so what is the way to respond? Because I try to just say no, I never said that and you’re bearing false witness, you know, like, like that’s not true and, and I’m happy to say what I said. And then at some point I’ll try to use some humor, you know, but, or, or, or most often just don’t disengage, just don’t engage. But what is because this happened to Jesus, this happened to Joseph Smith and this happens to all of us in life. I’m just, I feel like with what I’m trying to do, I’m a good target for people who want to do this. What is the best way to respond? Because it’s so, especially when they come into your space and try to contact your leaders and try to, you know, and, and try to reach out like I know people whose families and loved ones have been told these lies about them and, and it can create real divisions when people lie about someone and then someone believes it instead of just approaching the person. So I’d love to just have you counsel what you think is the way to respond.

[2:45:37] Kimberly: Yeah. You know, I, I’m sure I’m gonna get some uh, comments with some nice spins from this broadcast, you know, and I had a friend last night that said, are, aren’t you afraid of the posts and the comments that, and I’m just like, no, I’m not, I’m not afraid of it and because I honestly don’t get offended and there’s something I learned years ago in Nabu, if you’ve ever been in the NAVI pageant, you know, they have the um, protesters who come in, uh, just like they do at general conference and you have the screamers and the yellers. And I was up in front of, uh Zion mercantile walking down the sidewalk and there’s this guy who was pacing up and down the sidewalk and he was behind me coming my way and he was one of the ones that would yell at even the little kids and he’d scare the kids. It was horrible. And he started getting that Joseph Smith was this. He was a pedophile. He was this and it was at my back. It was just at my back and I, I kept walking but tears were just going down my face because I was like, look how this is affecting me. Look how this is affecting me. What must it have been like for him? And in this, in, in that moment, I was like, but he endured it and he saw everything to the end and if he could endure it, then I can. And it’s the same with his savior if he can endure what he did on the cross and I can, I can handle this. And so I, I do, you know when I try, I don’t often post on some of the, the, the Facebook pages about these topics, but every now and then someone will say something that’s a little out of context about Joseph and Emma Emma. And I’ll pop on and I’ll say, well, it’s not exactly how it was and then, and then they’ll come back and want to debate with me. And I’m just after a while, like, after a few back and forth I’ll start getting this feeling like he’s sucking my energy away, you know, and it’s starting to feel heavy and I’ll, and I’ll just end it with, you know. You know, I’ve kind of said what I said and I, I wish you luck, you know, I wish you blessings from God. You, I’ll end it up a bit. Thanks. I can’t debate about this. You know, this, I, I wish you a blessed life and just, just leave it at that. Yeah, it’s, it is. It’s hard. Yeah.

[2:47:56] Michelle: So, just do your best to, that’s what I, I kind of, I like, I’ll just let, if people want to believe those things, there’s nothing I can do about it. People believed horrible things about Joseph Smith and he tried, try as he might, they continued to say it. They continued to believe it. No, I guess he just did his best to be who he was

[2:48:15] Kimberly: and they’re going to be out there no matter, no matter how clear you make it and how full of truth it is. There’s, there are gonna be those who want, will want to contend and, you know, you can always be southern. You know, I’m from the south and you just say bless your heart and they don’t know what that means it sounds nice but it’s not. Yeah. Ok.

[2:48:40] Michelle: I have heard people have informed me about that one. Yeah,

[2:48:43] Kimberly: that’s funny. So,

[2:48:46] Michelle: ok, I’ll just say that to myself. Bless, bless her heart,

[2:48:50] Kimberly: bless her heart. That’s right.

[2:48:55] Michelle: Well, my goodness, thank you for jumping back on. I know we had, we might have repeated a little bit of what we said, but I thought it was all valuable. Did you have something else that you were going to say? Did we?

[2:49:07] Kimberly: I think we covered it all this time.

[2:49:10] Michelle: Ok. Ok. Well, if the Lord wakes you up in the middle of the night, again, let me know and I

[2:49:16] Kimberly: will see if

[2:49:17] Michelle: we need to jump back on. But um again, thank you so much and I look forward to a continued friendship. II, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time getting to know you. So. Ok, have a great day, everybody. Another huge. Thank you to Kimberly for sharing herself with us. That was beautiful. I will keep you updated about any exciting things we are able to arrange. And a huge thank you to each of you who are walking this path with me and engaged in this journey of seeking truth in a spirit of love and just a desire to serve God. Thank you so much and I will see you next time.

132 Problems: Revisiting Mormon Polygamy

132 Problems: Revisiting Mormon Polygamy

100: Kimberly Smith on Unity and Forgiveness – Making Peace with Polygamy

132 Problems: Revisiting Mormon Polygamy

100: Kimberly Smith on Unity and Forgiveness – Making Peace with Polygamy

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